The High Court of Justice of England and Wales has given permission for lawyers acting for two British citizens, fighting a legal battle for the right to vote in the EU 'Brexit' Referendum, to take their case to the Court of Appeal on May 9th.
On April 28, 2016 Lord Justice Lloyd Jones, sitting with Mr Justice Blake, rejected the legal challenge taken by 94-year-old Harry Shindler, a WWII veteran who lives in Italy, and lawyer and Belgian resident Jacquelyn MacLennan against the UK Government’s decision to exclude from the June vote those Britons who have lived elsewhere in the European Union for more than 15 years.
Lawyers from law firm Leigh Day argued that under the EU Referendum Act 2015 around 2 million British citizens are being unlawfully denied the right to vote on the UK’s continued membership of the EU.
They told the Court that if the vote in June is to leave the EU then all British citizens will lose their status as EU citizens. This means that those British citizens living outside the UK but in the EU will become “resident aliens” living and working abroad under sufferance rather than by right and no longer able to claim the protections of EU law .
The Court also heard arguments that the ’15 year rule’ acted as a penalty against British citizens for having exercised their free movement rights. The rule prevented them from participating in a democratic process, the result of which might bring to an end the very EU law rights on which they rely and base their working and private lives every day.
