The Court of Justice of the European Union dismissed an appeal Thursday from British citizens who challenged their loss of European Union (EU) citizen rights as a result of Brexit. The Court dismissed the appeal as “the appellants do not have an interest in bringing proceedings against the decision at issue.”

The United Kingdom decided to leave the EU by way of a referendum in 2016, following which, the country signed the Brexit withdrawal agreement in 2020. After withdrawing from the EU that year, British citizens lost certain rights they had previously had as EU citizens. In response to this, three separate actions were originally brought before the General Court in late 2020 by British citizens residing in the United Kingdom and various Member States. The citizens argued that the Brexit withdrawal agreement deprived them of the rights they had exercised and acquired as EU citizens, but this was dismissed by the General Court as inadmissible.

In Thursday’s appeal at the Court of Justice, the British citizens argued that there had been an error of law when the General Court decided the claim was inadmissible. However, the Court of Justice upheld the General Court’s decision. The Court declared that “[t]he loss of the status of citizen of the European Union, and consequently the loss of the rights attached to that status, is an automatic consequence of the sole sovereign decision taken by the United Kingdom to withdraw from the European Union.”