26/09/2013
It is hard keeping track of what is going on in the EU â to do it properly, we could use a team of several skilled researchers. This blog makes a poor fist of it â I don't have the resources and, although readers provide a huge amount of information, we can't cover all the bases.
Perforce, we do therefore have to rely on published sources and in particular the legacy media, using them as notice boards to warn us of possible threats in the offing. The trouble is that, so often, the media gets it wrong and we end up chasing false information.
Very much in that territory once again is today's
Daily Mail. It has picked up a non-story that was actually done three weeks ago by the
Telegraph, telling us that the EU is planning a "power grab" of Britain's legal rights. Eurocrats, the paper avers, are plotting to extend control over justice system and introduce new human rights including giving prisoners the vote.
Looking at the small print of the story, we see that, under "plans" by European Commission vice president Viviane Reding, the EU would assume far greater powers over life in the UK. "For the first time, Britain would be bound by law to uphold the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. This would make EU-appointed judges the final arbiter of human rights legislation".
Lots more follows, spelling out the dire implications of such a move. We have a "furious response" from Justice Secretary Chris Grayling and also a "comfort quote" from Stephen Booth,
Open Europe. He is cited as saying: "This is a fundamental and outright challenge to national governments' authority over their own legal systems".
But, of course, it isn't. It could be if it went ahead â if it was a fixed plan. But there is a long way to go. Rather than a plan, or even a "plot", this is a general aspiration
expressed recently to Centre for European Studies, on "the possibilities of introducing a new rule of law mechanism for the European Union".
That it is no more than an aspiration is disclosed by Reding herself, with her speech
telling us that, although powers in existing treaties could be exploited, any more detailed monitoring and sanctioning powers for the Commission would require an amendment of the Treaty.
For sure, the effects of that could be dramatic. Reding calls the ideas "ambitious", extending the powers of the Fundamental Rights Agency, or abolishing Article 51 of the our Charter of Fundamental Rights, so as to make all fundamental rights directly applicable in the Member States.
But any such move would require a treaty change. It would be well flagged-up in advance, would have to go though an IGC, and then would be subject to a British veto and then, by law, a referendum, before any treaty could be ratified.
In other words this is entirely an academic proposition, a million miles away from being a "power grab", and about as likely to as the EU banning union flags on retail meat packs. To be fair, this claim isn't yet on the UKIP new website, but that's another place where you have to be careful what you read.
For the time being though, the EU is not about to take control of our justice system. It could happen, but not just yet, and not unless the British government and the British people agree.
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