Harry Shindler MBE emailed us today to send the following message to supporters of the Votes for Life campaign. His case will be heard at the European Court of Justice on November 26 2018.
Update on the ECJ ruling of Nov 26th 2018
Summary from the Action for Expats Crowdjustice page –
The ruling given on 26th November in Luxembourg is disappointing. “Catch 22” one might say. It can be read in full HERE.
To summarise: the service of Article 50 Notice and the negotiations have not resulted in any loss of citizen rights since the final agreement is not yet signed and there has been no ‘final act’. The Article 50 Notice is only ‘preparatory’. So the court cannot make any ruling until the rights have been lost (!).
By that time the UK will be out of the EU. Catch 22 indeed.
Note however that the ruling implicitly admits that the Article 50 Notice itself is NOT a final act, merely preparatory. That may be of some help to the Maugham case currently being heard in the CJEU.
It is astonishing that the judges made no mention of the core claim of the case: the discrimination against those UK citizens who were denied a vote in the 2016 referendum. Surely this is matter of EU law in itself , and should not depend on proof of loss of other rights?
Julien Fouchet will be submitting an urgent appeal to the Court against its ruling of 26 November within the next few days. We need to raise more funds. The target will be increased to £60,000. Please support if you can, and share this call for funds with others. Thanks from all at the AFEV team. Harry Shindler never gives up, nor will we!
You can read the ruling in full by clicking here and The Guardian’s report on the ruling here.
