“We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our
criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it. That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law…”
That was David Cameron a year ago when he presented the Tories’ EU policy ahead of the General Election. As we all know, much has changed since then. The pledge to ‘repatriate’ powers has been dropped, a victim of the Coalition deal.
But despite this, MPs now have a huge opportunity to make good on pledges to regain control over EU justice laws, and even to repatriate powers should they want to – without having to change a single comma in the EU Treaties.
How?
Well, like this: the ‘referendum lock’, contained in the Government’s EU Bill, will be debated next week in Parliament. The referendum lock has come under some criticism, but actually introduces a much-needed democratic check on the EU’s growing powers (including on the self-amending aspects of the Lisbon Treaty).
However, there are still some loopholes, most importantly on policing, crime, justice and immigration – where the EU has gained substantial new powers under Lisbon.
Two simple changes to the EU Bill would sort this out, radically bolstering Parliament’s powers over the EU’s growing justice portfolio in the process.
First, under the Lisbon Treaty, the Government has the right to opt in to EU police, crime and immigration laws on a case-by-case basis – but almost entirely at the discretion of Ministers. There is no shortage of proposals for the Coalition to consider under this arrangement, for example giving EU authorities the power to initiate criminal investigations in the UK.
Importantly, the UK’s ‘opt in’ for justice and home affairs means the UK still has a choice over EU integration in these areas. Requiring the Government to get the approval of Parliament, or the people in the most significant cases, before it can sign up to new EU crime, policing and immigration laws would at last introduce genuine democratic debate to this issue. There are good EU laws, and bad EU laws – the point is that we need to debate them properly in Parliament and in public, so that the bad ones can be weeded out. This just isn’t happening at the moment.
Secondly, under an obscure provision in the Lisbon Treaty, by 2014, the Government must decide whether or not existing EU crime and policing laws – such as the uber-controversial European Arrest Warrant – should continue to apply in the UK. If the answer is Yes, EU judges will be granted full jurisdiction over them for the first time. But if it’s a No, the laws would cease to have effect in the UK altogether (though the Government could opt back into them on a case-by-case basis).
At the moment, this decision isn’t covered by the EU Bill at all, but is one purely for ministers. And we’re talking about a huge choice – some 100 or more EU laws and measures are potentially up for grabs here. Such a decision simply must be a matter for people in a referendum – or at the very least Parliament, through binding votes in both houses.
A possible, but less ideal, solution would be to address these issues outside the Bill, which still would be an improvement. But the huge merit of attaching these provisions to the Bill is that in two simple brushstrokes, a large slug of EU laws would be brought back into the UK’s democratic orbit. It would effectively be the first time powers move from Brussels.
Then a robust and open debate, or politics as normal, can begin over the level of UK-EU cooperation on crime, justice and immigration – and let the strongest argument win. Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MP alike, who could object?
(Open Europe has highlighted the amendments that would achieve this and that we think MPs should support here. )
Mats Persson is Director of Open Europe
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