EU ?

[DaveO]

Nobody has mentioned the ECHR - the issue is with the European Court of Justice in which unelected European judges strike down laws enacted by democratically elected governments.

Nobody mentioned the ECJ either! Hence my question, was WW on about the ECHR, because as I said in my post some people are stupid enough to vote to leave the EU because they think we'd be voting to leave the ECHR behind as well.

As to the ECJ striking down laws, no it can't.

But I'd be interested to know as in this country why do you think governments should be above the law?

People seem to have this weird notion that our western governments are in fact dictatorships who should as a matter of course if the courts say "no, you can't do that" simply rewrite the law so that they can do whatever it is they want to do.

It is a mind numbly stupid attitude and shows a complete lack of understanding of how democracies work.

Governments are subject to the rule of law. In our case national law and EU law.

We do not elect judges in our courts either but they can (and do) send the government packing and thank God they can.

Complaining that the governments is being overruled by a court be it a domestic one or the ECJ is crazy. You are asking for Government to be allowed to rule unchecked by the law.

As to the ECJ itself, what exactly are you complaining about?

The ECJ ensures that European law is interpreted and applied in the same way in every member state.

Your problem with that is what?

The Judges and Advocate Generals are appointed by joint agreement of the governments of the member states. (In the UK judges to our courts used to be appointed by the Lard Chancellor but are now made by the independent Judicial Appointments Commission).

So these ECJ Judges are appointed by democratically elected governments. Problem with that?

So what does the ECJ do? Three things:

1. Makes primary rulings on EU law (not domestic laws) so they are consistent. That is, if a national court has a case that involves EU law and there is doubt as to how to interpret the EU law, the national court refers to the ECJ so the national court applies the law the same way as is applied in other states.

What is your problem with that?

2. Compliance with EU law. It can force a member state to comply with EU law. So if a state fails to implement the working time directive for example the ECJ will judge if they are failing to do so and if they are, force them to rectify this.

Seems OK to me!

3. Handle what are known as proceedings for annulment. This is where a state or an EU citizen can ask for an EU law to be annulled if they can show it adversely affects them. Note this is annulling EU law, not the EU overruling national law.

Seems fair to me!

That is its remit and all it can do.

So saying it can "strike down laws enacted by democratically elected governments" is complete bollocks anyway.

So what are you and WW complaining about exactly?

[DaveO]

You may not trust the tories and their bill of rights, but we will have a general election four years from now, and we get to choose whether we throw them out. The difference with the EU is you don't get to choose who makes the decisions - ever.

That is both naive and incorrect. You have just seen a government be elected based on system whereby they got a majority based on 24% of the electorate voting for them.

Based on this they are pushing for a system whereby Parliament can veto a law of a democratically elected government via its English Votes for English Law proposals which everyone who cares knows that will result in Tory rule by the back door in England even if the don't win an election in future.

Add in the reduction to 600 MP's and we are heading for a one party state very soon. The idea we can overturn the ripping up of our rights is naive and even if we could, how many people's lives are going to ruined in the five years before an election?

But hey, in your world that will be OK because we voted for our own misery shunning the protection being an EU citizen gives.

As to this bit:

The difference with the EU is you don't get to choose who makes the decisions - ever.

Complete and utter bollocks.

EU decisions are made by the Council of the European Union made up of ministers from the member governments (so you get to choose the UK ministers by your vote) in conjunction with the European Parliament, made up of MEP's (who you also elect).

So how on earth can you say "you don't get to choose who makes the decisions".

You do. If you can be bothered to vote.

You get to vote for your MEP (not in some gerrymandered electoral system either) and for the ministers who represent you on the Council.

Your final paragraph is an exercise in absolute paranoia. It may come as a very big surprise, but the UK was a principle architect of the Convention on Human Rights, even worse, the it was the idea of the Tory politician Winston Churchill. The problem with the Convention, isn't the convention itself, but the misuse of its articles compounded by the emasculation of our own judicial system, powerless to act against the primacy of the EU. To suggest that we are incapable of replacing the current system with something that restructures our priorities is incredible

Hang on. Now you are confusing the ECJ and the ECHR.

As I pointed out the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU. Yet here you are saying the EU is reason we fall foul of the Convention on Human Rights because the Eu overrules our courts.

That is completely incorrect and is why I mentioned the ECHR in the first place in a previous post!

Looks like I was right people will vote to leave the EU because they think the EU is what enforces the European Convention on Human rights.

Similarly your statement that 'they' will cancel our employment rights. We did have employment rights before the EU; anyone who has a job, has an employment contract. Contracts have been enforceable and remedies for breaching a contract have been available through the courts since God was a lad. What your are suggesting is that we wouldn't have progressed at all without Europe. What you will actually find if you care to look, is that many of the employment rights we have go much further than the EU ever intended that we should go

The working time directive was opposed by the Tories and would never have been implemented without the EU. There is no way you can argue it would have been implemented without the EU.

Since they have been elected (in 2010 as well as 2015) they have reduced various rights such as reducing notice period for redundancy down from 3 months to 1 month and are busy going after the trade unions again.

It's as clear as day once free of any constraining EU legislation on employment your, rights will disappear.

The idea they will come back if that government is thrown out is nuts. Governments do not spend five years in office undoing everything the last government did and of course if they did then what is to stop the next government doing just the same? Laws that governments oppose in opposition do not get routinely repealed (e.g. Thatcher didn't repeal the end of Grammar schools).

[DaveO]

Pardon me if this seems rude, but look it up. There are literally hundreds of ECJ cases going back over decades against every member state. The role of the ECJ is very very well documented.

To start you off, the ECJ struck down the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 which was an attempt to protect British jobs; it also led to the government paying Spanish fishermen £55 million in compensation.

Just recently, the ECJ ruled that the UK cannot automatically deport foreigners who are sentenced to more than one year in prison under the Borders Act

I think you are the one who needs to look it up.

Neither are a simple as you like to make out.

The shipping act was an attempt to introduce a law that was against existing EU laws, those relating to the common fisheries policy, the UK had signed up for. The fact it lost is/was no surprise and the fact before it did, it denied shipping rights to other fleets was bound to lead to compensation.

Now you can argue you don't like the common fisheries policy but stop trying to blame the ECJ for doing its job of upholding EU law.

If your problem is with the common fisheries policy you should say so and say what you expect after an exit. Will we still have to open up our waters to foreign boats in order to access the EU market? If not why not? Do you have the answer to that?

The deportation ruling is not as simple as you make out either and hasn't been made yet anyway.

It concerns the AUTOMATIC deportation of non-EU criminals who are sentenced to more than 12 months.

The ruling of the ECJ says instead of this being automatic the Home Secretary must consider each case on its merits taking into account if the criminal constitutes a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to society where that criminal has a UK family.

The reason it went to the ECJ is because a Moroccan woman who was jailed for 12 months in 2012 was issued with an automatic deportation order after completing her sentence.

She has a dependant son who is a UK citizen, so the automatic deportation of her means her son would be being "constructively deported" from the EU. He is an EU and UK citizen so deporting him along with his mother is the UK deporting a citizen of this country to one he is not a citizen of!

It seems to me this is in fact an example of the ECJ putting the brakes on an ill thought out draconian measure from Theresa May and the ruling, if it comes into force, is quite sensible.

If you think about it for a minute as it stood the law of automatic deportation of families is little different to cursory transportation to Australia as used to be done.

I am sure after due consideration there will still be plenty of other deportees.

[Owd Codger]

Exactly, a body never elected!

What - unelected, how anti-british.

Wait, is that like the house of lords? Perhaps it *is* the british way after all. I doth my cap to em.

No doubt, like the British tradition of being a serf and enjoying wearing the sackcloth then.

People in Republics take action, even in the USA!

[jobo]

Pardon me if this seems rude, but look it up. There are literally hundreds of ECJ cases going back over decades against every member state. The role of the ECJ is very very well documented.

To start you off, the ECJ struck down the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 which was an attempt to protect British jobs; it also led to the government paying Spanish fishermen £55 million in compensation.

Just recently, the ECJ ruled that the UK cannot automatically deport foreigners who are sentenced to more than one year in prison under the Borders Act

I think you are the one who needs to look it up.

Neither are a simple as you like to make out.

The shipping act was an attempt to introduce a law that was against existing EU laws, those relating to the common fisheries policy, the UK had signed up for. The fact it lost is/was no surprise and the fact before it did, it denied shipping rights to other fleets was bound to lead to compensation.

Now you can argue you don't like the common fisheries policy but stop trying to blame the ECJ for doing its job of upholding EU law.

If your problem is with the common fisheries policy you should say so and say what you expect after an exit. Will we still have to open up our waters to foreign boats in order to access the EU market? If not why not? Do you have the answer to that?

The deportation ruling is not as simple as you make out either and hasn't been made yet anyway.

It concerns the AUTOMATIC deportation of non-EU criminals who are sentenced to more than 12 months.

The ruling of the ECJ says instead of this being automatic the Home Secretary must consider each case on its merits taking into account if the criminal constitutes a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to society where that criminal has a UK family.

The reason it went to the ECJ is because a Moroccan woman who was jailed for 12 months in 2012 was issued with an automatic deportation order after completing her sentence.

She has a dependant son who is a UK citizen, so the automatic deportation of her means her son would be being "constructively deported" from the EU. He is an EU and UK citizen so deporting him along with his mother is the UK deporting a citizen of this country to one he is not a citizen of!

It seems to me this is in fact an example of the ECJ putting the brakes on an ill thought out draconian measure from Theresa May and the ruling, if it comes into force, is quite sensible.

If you think about it for a minute as it stood the law of automatic deportation of families is little different to cursory transportation to Australia as used to be done.

I am sure after due consideration there will still be plenty of other deportees.

Well put DaveO.

When xenophobia and prejudice are
taken out of the argument, facts are like a beam of light.

[SJ]

One of my concerns is Security. Listening to BBC News today Mike Fallon has repeated the government line(or should I say lies that we will be more secure in the EU than out. Paradoxically the Security Service in particular MI 6 are saying we will be more secure out of the EU. Who would you believe the Minister Of Defence( a career politician or the career security officials of the Intelligence Services. I know who I believe. As a point of interest shouldn't the government be making plans for if there is a vote to Exit the EU after all it's their referendum has well as ours and they are still in government whichever way the vote goes. It's for them to come up with contingency plans not for those who wish to leave

[DaveO]

One of my concerns is Security. Listening to BBC News today Mike Fallon has repeated the government line(or should I say lies that we will be more secure in the EU than out. Paradoxically the Security Service in particular MI 6 are saying we will be more secure out of the EU. Who would you believe the Minister Of Defence( a career politician or the career security officials of the Intelligence Services. I know who I believe. As a point of interest shouldn't the government be making plans for if there is a vote to Exit the EU after all it's their referendum has well as ours and they are still in government whichever way the vote goes. It's for them to come up with contingency plans not for those who wish to leave

Do you have link to MI6 concerns?

I am not sure how we would be more secure. The French have more or less said if we leave that is the end of policing the channel ports and how withdrawing from the EU affects EU wide security cooperation I have no idea but it doesn't seem likely to enhance it.

We don't have an open border with Europe as it is and I read somewhere that we get 34 million visitors a year from Europe.

The idea we are suddenly going to employ enough border control staff and are going to start requiring visas to travel here from EU countries on that scale so we can vet them all is a non-starter.

It would kill the UK tourist industry overnight.

[SJ]

One of my concerns is Security. Listening to BBC News today Mike Fallon has repeated the government line(or should I say lies that we will be more secure in the EU than out. Paradoxically the Security Service in particular MI 6 are saying we will be more secure out of the EU. Who would you believe the Minister Of Defence( a career politician or the career security officials of the Intelligence Services. I know who I believe. As a point of interest shouldn't the government be making plans for if there is a vote to Exit the EU after all it's their referendum has well as ours and they are still in government whichever way the vote goes. It's for them to come up with contingency plans not for those who wish to leave

Do you have link to MI6 concerns?

I am not sure how we would be more secure. The French have more or less said if we leave that is the end of policing the channel ports and how withdrawing from the EU affects EU wide security cooperation I have no idea but it doesn't seem likely to enhance it.

We don't have an open border with Europe as it is and I read somewhere that we get 34 million visitors a year from Europe.

The idea we are suddenly going to employ enough border control staff and are going to start requiring visas to travel here from EU countries on that scale so we can vet them all is a non-starter.

It would kill the UK tourist industry overnight.

I here what you say Dave. I 'd like to know what "call me Dave "will do assuming we leave the EU.

[Owd Codger]

One of my concerns is Security. Listening to BBC News today Mike Fallon has repeated the government line(or should I say lies that we will be more secure in the EU than out. Paradoxically the Security Service in particular MI 6 are saying we will be more secure out of the EU. Who would you believe the Minister Of Defence( a career politician or the career security officials of the Intelligence Services. I know who I believe. As a point of interest shouldn't the government be making plans for if there is a vote to Exit the EU after all it's their referendum has well as ours and they are still in government whichever way the vote goes. It's for them to come up with contingency plans not for those who wish to leave

Do you have link to MI6 concerns?

I am not sure how we would be more secure. The French have more or less said if we leave that is the end of policing the channel ports and how withdrawing from the EU affects EU wide security cooperation I have no idea but it doesn't seem likely to enhance it.

We don't have an open border with Europe as it is and I read somewhere that we get 34 million visitors a year from Europe.

The idea we are suddenly going to employ enough border control staff and are going to start requiring visas to travel here from EU countries on that scale so we can vet them all is a non-starter.

It would kill the UK tourist industry overnight.

I here what you say Dave. I 'd like to know what "call me Dave "will do assuming we leave the EU.

'It would kill the tourist industry overnight'

I feel sure that if I was a tourist visitor coming to our country I would see no problem in having to have a visa if I knew it was in order to keep the country more secure on my visit.

And where having to have a visa as a tourist, I don't think it has done any harm to the tourist trade of the USA or indeed many other countries visited by British tourists.

[Wiganer Ted]

If the French cancel the agreement over Calais and our border checks there, then we become less secure.
There will not be any checks prior to lorries arriving in the UK and any migrant arriving here will claim asylum, refugee status etc. It will be out of control and withing the UK.

I still have not heard one matter from a "Leaver" politition that makes any kind of sense for us to depart the EU.
Whether that be trade, fisheries, agriculture, border security or anything else. The more I hear them the progressively worse case they make.

Free Trade means more Trade and more Jobs.
Lets keep it that way!