In 1996, Prime Minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen was sued by 12 Eurosceptics for violating this section. The Supreme Court acquitted Rasmussen (and thereby earlier governments dating back to 1972) but reaffirmed that there are limits to how much sovereignty can be surrendered before this becomes unconstitutional. In 2011, Prime Ministers Lars Løkke Rasmussen faced a similar challenge when he was sued by 28 citizens for having adopted the European Lisbon Treaty without a referendum. The group of professors, actors, writers and Eurosceptic politicians argued that the Lisbon Treaty hands over parts of national sovereignty to the EU and therefore a referendum should have taken place. The case was later dismissed.