Lord Sumption ended this year's Reith lectures - the finest in my memory - with the conclusion that, in the struggle between law and democracy, it was democracy that should take precedence. He was particularly concerned over 'dynamic' arrangements such as the ECHR, which is not a fixed, static agreement but which changes and evolves over time, committing its signatories to compliance with whatever changes are made by the European Court of Human Rights. The scope of law that the ECtHR has permitted itself to enact is not limited or trivial, certainly not limited to the basic rights to which we signed up in the 30 articles of the UDHR in 1948 (the UDHR is not a dynamic treaty); as Sumption said, ECHR competencies now include ".. the legal status of illegitimate children, immigration and deportation, extradition, criminal sentencing, the recording of crime, abortion, artificial insemination, homosexuality and same sex unions, child abduction, the policing of public demonstrations, employment and social security rights, environmental and planning law, noise abatement, eviction for non-payment of rent and a great deal else besides." All of which should be, for the UK, matters for which our Parliament should be legislating, not taking Euro judge-law.
As the Telegraph reports, there is now a show-down between the EU and Switzerland. The essential cause is Switzerland's rejecting a 'dynamic' treaty back in the 1990s and the EU's determination that she should now surrender to the EU effectively making Swiss law -
... the EU favours “dynamic alignment”, which means that the Swiss would be forced to accept updates of the EU rules they have aligned with in return for market access. It is a long-standing EU frustration that this wasn’t negotiated in the 1990s. The reason was of course the deep Swiss attachment to democracy and suspicion of agreeing to accede to EU rules that aren’t properly understood.The EU also wants Switzerland to sign-up to the jurisdiction of the ECJ in disputes - also something that the democracy-loving Swiss have hitherto refused to do.The ECJ is NOT a court of justice as the anglophone world understands the word - it is a court of federal alignment, a political court whose mission is explicitly to further the integrationist political agenda of the EU zealots. Again, as a political court its evolution of the law is 'dynamic' and it overturns, muddles and distorts previous judgements when some new federast opportunity presents itself to the court.
Beware the EU, but at all costs beware the EU's 'dynamic' laws and agreements - we should abnegate not a groat of independence to these jackals, concede not a single EN millimetre without the British parliament having jurisdiction. They are trying to build an antidemocratic empire, and Europe's democracies - with the United Kingdom and Switzerland to the fore - must stand firmly against them.
No, the scope of law upon which ECHR might have an impact is unlimited.
ReplyDeleteHowever, to decent, civilised people, the fact of that impact has little material adverse effect, absolutely the reverse, so any impingement upon their freedoms is trivial.
Edward, dear, do try harder to read what is written
ReplyDelete".. scope of law that the ECtHR has permitted itself to enact is not limited ..".
I wonder if that daft old lefty that wrote the Star Trek stories had a full understanding of the nature of the European Union, and based "the Borg" on that model.
ReplyDeleteYou will be assimilated....
Here we are with all the gear strapped on that makes us behave oddly in the face of invasion, or when being presented with the ever ratcheting Euro-Nonsense. The eye implant even has facial muscles growing around it.
In the EU there is only one kind of existence....
The Borg Collective.
Resistance is futile.
The "no" was one of agreement, Raedwald.
ReplyDeleteBut what do you actually want to do, which is not permitted by ECHR? The deportation of criminals very much is, as ECtHR clarified for Russia a year or two back, incidentally.
Our problem of course is that we are stuck with a Parliament that eagerly gives away jurisdiction and sovereignty to the EU any chance t gets...
ReplyDelete@ 07:59
ReplyDeleteHere's your problem (or one of them)........
"But what do you actually want to do, which is not *permitted* by ECHR?"
I Would suggest that as a sovereign nation we do not need permits to conduct our lives, everything is allowed unless OUR government, which answers to us, decides regulation is necessary.
The concept of a dynamic treaty is ridiculous, how could the eu ever be in breach of a treaty in which it can change the terms at will.
ReplyDeleteDynamic treaty seems like slime-speak for unconditional surrender.
The problem always seems to me to be that in the UK no government can bind its successor.
ReplyDeleteInternational treaties alter that relationship - and with EU membership that principle seems to be even more compromised.
Mrs. Proudie, you seem concerned not with a juristic analysis of whether our laws are good or bad ones, but only whether any foreigners had a hand in their drafting.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have news for you. Most of it was drafted by them. For the largest part, property law, the fundamentals were laid down by the Romans and by the Normans, for instance.
Your reaction seems akin to the lady in Little Britain, who would vomit at the notion of any non-English person having touched anything connected with her.
Sovereignty is not like virginity, jealously obsessed over by trembling old maids. It is to be kept for what really matters, such as not being dragged into pointless, immoral, and tragic wars by our so-called allies.
Eddie, like the Balkans?
ReplyDeleteRaedwald, your blog has a misogynist troll, you lucky chap! He must be French, asking questions like this
ReplyDelete"But what do you actually want to do, which is not permitted by ECHR? "
Good Morning everyone!
ReplyDeleteI believe there are “,self amending” provisions in the Lisbon treaty which permit amendments provided there is unanimous agreement.
Of course, international relations develop and change all the time and treaties define the steps along this root. As far as I know the EU’s structure and preordained system of progression to “ever closer union” is built into the EU acquis which is like a ratchet and can only go one way.
Oddly enough, I met two pro EU speakers in the Referendum who praised the principle of Parliamentary sovereignty - both Remainers and, in the aftermath, another keen Remainer who was trying to encourage Leavers to the hardest “clean break”Brexit. In September 2016, I wrote it up and it can be Googled at. “ Edward Spalton Europhiles for a sovereign Parliament?” and it turned out to be moderately prophetic. Keen Remainers did find a sudden affinity for a sovereign parliament in order to obstruct the “ Henery VIII powers” in government legislation.
Mr Raab's "the assault on liberty" contains an excellent analysis of the flaws in how the ECHR is staffed, functions, and it's uniquely bad relation to UK lawmaking
ReplyDeleteI am extremely sad that Mr Raab isn't in line for the top job.
ReplyDeleteNah, Lilith. I like women. They like me.
ReplyDeleteI'll leave misogyny to Nigel "shut up you stupid woman" Farage and Boris "get off my fucking laptop" Johnson, thanks.
The title of this article reminded me of Ernest Bevin who was Foreign Secretary in Mr Attlee’s government.
ReplyDeleteHe was a strong Eurosceptic before the word had been invented and opposed moves towards European
Integration. A self-educated West Country man who had left school at eleven, he remarked of the project
“ If you open that Pandora’s box, you don’t know ‘ow many Trojan ‘ orses will come flyin’ out.
According to my informant Lord Walsingham, the Mandarins of the Foreign Office rated him the most
outstanding Foreign Secretary of the twentieth century.
Pretty poor examples of ‘misogyny’ from CE.
ReplyDeleteI regularly say ‘shut up you stupid boy’ to my son and ‘shut up you stupid old fart’ to my father.
Funnily enough, they don’t take offence.
Because they are sensible - probably as both enjoyed a Classical Education.
Boris in Bournemouth. Brilliant to hear him say he'll bypass Parliament.
ReplyDeleteCheerful Ted
ReplyDeleteI cna only imagine that the kind of women that like you are the kind which no bloke in his right mind would like seeig as how you seem to spend most of your time on your laptop in your mother's basement hammering out bollocks on stilts with your fists.
Perhaps they like you because you give them large amounts of money, or perhaps you're a rotherham taxi driver and they're too young to tell you to f**k off?
Your bilge is neither insightful nor entertaining so you'd do better to go and torture a labrador puppy or something.
Angela Merkel types?
DeleteBetter hurry though as the Anfuhrerin is starting to get the same shakes as the original
Passing through London last night and caught the tail end of QT. Why did the Brexit lady not want Parliament to 'interfere' in Brexit legislation? Isn't Brexit about repatriating democratic sovereignty?
ReplyDeleteNot one of you dismal types could or would answer my simple question.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it that you want to do, or that you want the State to do, to whom, that ECHR prevents?
@Cheerful Edward
ReplyDeleteYou know, you're starting to sound like father Jack
"Dat would be an ECHR matter!"
As I've said before, a key mistake still being made by many Remain campaigners is to assume that a large majority of Leave voters voted Leave, because they were deceived, by the lies, spouted by Farage, by Johnson etc., and by those in the US-owned UK press.
ReplyDeleteNo, many of them were fully aware, that most of that was always utter tripe. Rather, their stated reasons for voting Leave were in fact excuses for doing so. If they told the truth, then they would say that they did it out of nothing more than spite, towards the people who got on, and who had better, more enlightened, and more joyful lives than they did.
Those motivated by the vice of envy, and operating cynically, will never be persuaded either by reason, nor by moral arguments. Nor are vicious and cynical people noted for being truthful, so there really is not much point in asking them why they did certain things.
They cheer the likes of Farage because of what they represent, not because they necessarily make any sense to them. They don’t care anyway. The comments above demonstrate that.
Unholy stink in here today. Coming from somewhere down this end of the page.
ReplyDeleteI think I've located it. Yes. Here it is. A Supremley virtuous, smug, self important something or other. Giving off a terrible pong of their own goodliness.
Smells a bit like a dirty sock puppet in the hamper, don't you think?
You love it, you slags!
ReplyDeleteOh come on chaps!
ReplyDeleteWe can do better than that!
Why not try to deliver criticism, rebuke (and even insults) with the elaborate courtesy of Mr. Rees Mogg? Far more effective and entertaining!
Having been opposed to our membership of the EEC/EU since 1972, I have met people with
many different motives for opposing it. Overwhelmingly they were concerned- or boiled down to - replacing an unelected alien technocracy with self government by people we could elect or dismiss. Gradually in most cases, we had come to realise that we had been deceived by our own political class with the result that, whoever we voted for, the Commission in Brussels always got in! The extent of the surrender was often concealed behind the Official Secret Act, like this Foreign Office memo of 1971 (FCO 30/1048)
"The transfer of major executive responsibilities to the bureaucratic Commission in Brussels will exacerbate popular feelings of alienation from government. To counter this feeling, strengthened local and regional democratic processes within member states and effective Community economic and social policies will be essential.....there would be a major responsibility on HM Government and on all political parties not to exacerbate public concern by attributing unpopular policies to the remote and unmanageable workings of the Community.."
Now, if that is not reason to rebel, I don't know what is.
Please note that the proposed "democratic processes" would be bogus because they would enforce "Community" (i.e. European) policies and the political parties were required not to give the game away! S
@ Mark 28 June 2019 at 10:12
ReplyDeleteIt is rumored that Merky owns an electro mechanical device, the WiFi remote of which has been hacked and turned up to eleven at inopportune moments.
Bon oeuf!
"Those motivated by the vice of envy, and operating cynically, will never be persuaded either by reason, nor by moral arguments. Nor are vicious and cynical people noted for being truthful, so there really is not much point in asking them why they did certain things".
ReplyDeleteCliff knows we've asked you enough times!
You've done enough projecting, now it sounds like you are confessing!
@Mark 20:38
ReplyDeleteLast sentence, yes, my thoughts exactly.