European Union (Amendment) Bill

Amendments Nos. 132, 133, 136 and 137 in this group were tabled in my name. They are supported by 20 fellow Back Benchers and many others in the Conservative party. Moreover, we have now established a rapport with our Front-Bench colleagues, which means we are working very cohesively. There might be some differences here and there, but we are basically all together and our clear mission is to explain—in very difficult circumstances and according to an impossible timetable—what the introduction into UK law of this extremely opaque treaty will mean. The treaty has been deliberately devised to be as hard to understand as the Eurocrats and the Government can make it. We went into that yesterday, but it is an affront in terms of time and of management. It is very nearly impossible in the time available to go into what is a substantial series of arguments. If I had more time, I would want to go into those arguments further to illustrate to the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mrs. Dunwoody), who made such a sound point, and other hon. Members, the impact that the treaty's provisions will have on the rights of the people of this country, individually and collectively. I referred to the distinction between the operation of our legal system and those of other European countries. There are 27 member states and they each have their own distinctive legal system. It would be completely impossible on such an occasion to make a comparative legal analysis of the differences, but they do exist, and they are very important to the people of those countries and to the European Union as a whole. For example, as I said in the previous debate, judges in the French system are appointed politically. It may seem odd that we should mention that. They would be surprised if anyone suggested that they should not be appointed politically because their system has been conducted in that way for generations. Accompanying that process is a state prosecution service. People go straight into that service; they do not undertake the prosecution of criminal offences as members of the Bar, as do my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) and other Members who are learned barristers. In France, there is a completely different system. I had experience of the code civil recently and it is difficult to work out which procedures prevail in it. They are written down in a constitutional manner and were brought forward, as some have said before, under the Napoleonic code. It is simply not possible to marry such a system with ours to get the sort of consensus to which the hon. Member for Eastleigh (Chris Huhne) referred. That is just rubbish. Without co-ordinating the laws into a uniform system, it would be impossible to apply similar criteria to each of the laws in the respective member states, or to say that the European prosecutor will be able to make a judgment on behalf of Europe as a whole as to what the tests should be of the prosecutions he initiates. Each of the 27 member states has its own state prosecution service, or a separate such service as we have in this country. I could enlarge on that, but in a nutshell I am describing an exercise in comparative law. Some books and authorities have attempted to explain all that, but it does not get us anywhere as a legislature. That is the problem. An academic exercise, which in a way is what this debate amounts to, simply will not do. We are dealing with the rights of the people of this country. It is difficult in the time available to do more than indicate the things that caused me concern and led me to table the amendments that were selected: amendments Nos. 132, 133, 136 and 137. I shall attempt to do so, and I shall try to be as brief as possible. I shall, however, have to reduce my carefully argued analysis into a truncated form. I am certain that I will not do the subject justice, but, given that justice has not been done to us in arranging the business, I hope that hon. Members will be indulgent enough to accept that it is simply not possible to do the job as well as one would wish. The amendments deal with fighting cross-border crime, co-decision in the EU, qualified majority voting and the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over police and judicial co-operation. Article 61 of the Lisbon treaty states:"““The Union shall constitute an area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights and the different legal systems and traditions of the Member States.””" That introduces the question, which we shall consider later—I trust that we will have an opportunity to consider it properly and at some length—of ““respect for fundamental rights””. The concept is casually thrown in to article 61, which goes on to consider endeavouring"““to ensure a high level of security through measures to prevent and combat crime,””—" I tackled some of those issues by referring to the differences between legal systems—"““racism and xenophobia””." A definition of ““xenophobia”” is not to be found in the treaty. Nobody knows what it is, except through some sort of cultural assessment. There is no legal definition. We encountered that problem in the European Scrutiny Committee when we considered the European arrest warrant. I could go into much more detail, and those who are interested can read the report on the matter. Then there is the operation of the European Court of Justice. As I have said, EU institutions will not take into account the special nature of British common law.