His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar is pleased to be able to advise the public that it has obtained three authoritative legal opinions on the legal sovereignty aspects of the UK-EU Treaty in relation to Gibraltar.

The opinions are from:

1. Lord David Pannick KC, Cross Bench Member of the House of Lords, of Blackstone Chambers. He is one of the UK’s most highly regarded advocates, practicing in a broad range of areas with a particular emphasis on Public law, Human Rights and Constitutional Law and specialising in appellate advocacy in most areas of law, from commercial disputes to trusts law. He has acted in a large number of the leading public law cases of the last 30 years, appearing in 100 cases in the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords (before it was replaced by the Supreme Court), more than 25 cases in the Supreme Court since its creation in 2009, more than 25 cases in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg and over 30 cases in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. He acted for Gina Miller in the Supreme Court in September 2019 when the Court held, by 11-0, that the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, had unlawfully prorogued Parliament and so Parliament was recalled the next day. He has advised Prime Ministers and Home Secretaries of the United Kingdom;

2. Sir Peter Caruana KCMG, KC, former Chief Minister of Gibraltar, whose reputation is well known and requires no introduction;

3. Jamie Trinidad KC is a fellow of Wolfson College Cambridge, and is also a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law also st the University of Cambridge. He represents and advises governments, corporations and NGOs around the world, and has been the Gibraltar Government’s principal advisor on international law for over a decade. He holds a PhD from the University of Cambridge, and is the author or editor of four books and many articles on questions of decolonisation, self-determination, territorial disputes, the practices of international courts, and other issues.

All three opinions confirm that the Treaty makes no concessions of legal sovereignty to Spain, or any other entity, over Gibraltar.

This confirms the analysis of His Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar, and His Majesty’s Attorney General for Gibraltar, as well as the UK Government, as the Chief Minister has previously explained.

The Chief Minister will refer to these opinions in the debate in Parliament on the ratification of the Treaty.

ENDS