European Union (Amendment) Bill

That is another legal gem to add to our wisdom this evening. I am very grateful to all those who have spoken. I say to the noble Baroness that it is inevitable—I know that your Lordships want to move on as quickly as possible—that there is some overlap between the last debate on the scope, jurisdiction and power of the European Court of Justice—which more or less put down firmly to a subordinate position the supremacy of Parliament in relation to laws already passed—and the question of the supremacy of Parliament now and to what extent it is affected by any future areas of expansion in the scope of the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice. That is a perfectly legitimate sequential pattern to follow between the two debates and I think that the noble Lord, Lord Neill of Bladen, was right to argue as he did. I found the last debate and this debate enormously stimulating. Listening to the views of our great legal luminaries and the learned Justice was like dipping into a cool, refreshing stream. They established beyond peradventure that, although my noble friend Lord Waddington may not be too happy about it—incidentally, it is a marvellous privilege to follow his rumbustious introduction—short of unlocking and trying to change the 1972 Act, the European Court of Justice is absolutely supreme in areas where it reigns. It is paramount. As Lord Justice Bingham said, it has a panoramic view and, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, it is a supreme constitutional court. There is no doubt about that. Although I know that some of my noble and honourable friends and many people in this country would like it not to be so, it is so. The fact of the matter is that, in the areas where the European Court of Justice prevails and reigns—where its writ runs—it is supreme and parliamentary sovereignty has been subordinated to it. Also relevant to this debate is the argument that we had earlier about whether that writ can be extended and whether it applies to matters where there appears to be a constitutional conflict between the Court of Justice and what we believe to be our own constitutional rights and values. We look to other countries, as the noble Lord, Lord Neill, rightly did, and see that they have constitutional safeguards in their courts and so on, whereas we have our own safeguards, which are of a different kind. Sometimes we wonder whether, at the parliamentary level, they could be reinforced. Perhaps in the future they can be. However, it is clearly established that the ECJ is supreme where its writ runs. A perfectly legitimate question remains hanging in the air. Although my noble friend Lord Waddington may not want to be at the centre of the debate, the question is this: if we agree to this Lisbon treaty Bill, to what extent are we extending the areas in which the writ runs and the ECJ’s law is supreme? That is a legitimate area of debate. We have established that the Court of Justice has supreme authority over a large area, but to what extent do we want to extend that? Extend it the Bill does and extend it the treaty does. No one denies the fact that the ECJ acquires, by the collapse of the Third Pillar and the movement of judicial and home affairs and even some aspects of foreign policy into the Union proper, new areas in which to reign. We have an absolutely legitimate query about the extent to which its writ should be extended.