Category: European Union
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Pavlos Eleftheriadis: The Constitutional Status of ‘Separation Law’
The European Communities Act 1972 caused an important and beneficial transformation to the British constitutional settlement. It made clear that some acts of Parliament have higher legal significance than others. This was recognised by the British courts in the case of Factortame. Many scholars believe that this was a legal ‘revolution’. I disagree. A better…
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Kenneth Armstrong: Can the UK Breach the Withdrawal Agreement and Get Away With It? – the United Kingdom Internal Market Bill
Amidst increasing concern about the UK Government’s intentions in respect of implementation of the EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement and the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took to Twitter to state: I trust the British government to implement the Withdrawal Agreement, an obligation under international law & prerequisite for any…
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Kate Ollerenshaw: Retained EU Case Law: A Fourth Option
The Ministry of Justice issued a consultation paper on Retained EU Case Law on 2 July 2020, seeking views on the exercise of the powers contained within Section 6(5A) of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (“the 2018 Act”) that were inserted by Section 26(1) of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 (“the 2020…
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Antonios Kouroutakis: How liberal is a democracy without a level playing field in the political process?
A couple of days ago, OLAF, the EU’s anti-fraud office after several years of investigation reported that Members of the European Parliament were ‘transferring part of their salaries to the national party coffers.’ Across the pond, Washington Post, a newspaper, reported that the President’s Name, ‘Trump’, would be printed in the memo section of the…
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Theodore Konstadinides: The German Constitutional Court’s decision on PSPP: Between mental gymnastics and common sense
The 5th of May 2020 will be remembered as a strange day for EU law and German constitutionalism. The German Constitutional Court upheld the constitutional complaints by several groups of individuals against the European Central Bank’s Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP). As explained in yesterday’s post by Thomas Horsley, the PSPP set up a framework…
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Thomas Horsley: Karlsruhe Bites Back: The German Federal Constitutional Court’s PSPP Judgment
On 5th May 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court (GFCC) upheld a series of constitutional complaints that the German Federal Government and Bundestag had violated the Basic Law’s guarantees on democratic legitimation by failing to challenge the validity of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) Public Sector Purchase Programme (PSPP) – an initiative established in 2015…
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Oliver Butler: Elgizouli v Secretary of State for the Home Department: The Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Data Subject
Many will no doubt pore over the Supreme Court’s recent judgment in Elgizouli v Secretary of State for the Home Department to evaluate its significance for the common law constraint of prerogative power. Ultimately, however, the Supreme Court held that it was not the common law but rather a failure by the Home Secretary to…
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Jack Simson Caird: The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill and the Rule of Law
The general election on 12 December 2019 has fundamentally changed the political dynamic driving the Brexit process. The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill (WAB), which will become law before 31 January 2020, has been substantially revised (from the version which was presented in October 2019) to reflect this Government’s approach to Brexit. The Bingham Centre…
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Theodore Konstadinides and Riccardo Sallustio: Clause 26 of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-20: An Exercise of Constitutional Impropriety?
The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill 2019-20 will pave the way for the UK to ratify the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement and thus depart from the European Union (EU) soon thereafter, having received its third reading in the House of Commons just last week. This contribution examines certain major consequences deriving from the Bill becoming law…
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Jeff King and Stephen Tierney: The Constitution Committee Reports on the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill
The European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill will make no further progress before the general election. The Bill is however of potentially huge constitutional significance, and a new government could well look to pass it quickly. It was therefore imperative that it be subjected to parliamentary scrutiny in the short period between its forestalled second reading…