Ratification delayed for UK court ruling on referendum

Britain’s final ratification of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty will not take place until after the British High Court rules on a legal bid to force a referendum, British prime minister Gordon Brown said today.

High Court judge Lord Justice Richards today said he was “very surprised” that ministers appeared to be planning to press ahead with ratification before he handed down his ruling next week.

He called on the British government to delay ratification until ministers had heard his decision on the application by eurosceptic millionaire Stuart Wheeler to have the decision not to put the Treaty to a public vote ruled unlawful.

If ministers declined to issue such an assurance, the judge said he would be ready to hear an application from Mr Wheeler for an injunction to prevent ratification.

Mr Brown today said that the Government’s own timetable already took into account the need to wait until Lord Justice Richards handed down his decision.

Speaking at the EU summit in Brussels, the British prime minister said: “The judgment fits into our own timetable, so ratification will not take place until we have had the judgment from the judge.”

Although the UK effectively became the 19th EU state to ratify the Treaty when the EU Amendment Act received Royal Assent yesterday, the process is not technically completed until the “instruments of ratification” are deposited in Rome.

The British Foreign Office has until the end of December to complete this stage, which Mr Wheeler argues leaves plenty of time to await the final ruling in his case.

However, a letter sent by British government solicitors to Lord Justice Richards and Mr Justice Mackay yesterday appeared to suggest that the UK intended to complete the ratification process immediately.

The letter stated: “As a matter of courtesy, I have been instructed to inform the court that, following Royal Assent to the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008, the Government is now proceeding to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.”

In a direction issued in response to the letter today, Lord Justice Richards said: “The court is very surprised that the Government apparently proposes to ratify while the claimant’s challenge to the decision not to hold a referendum on ratification is before the court.

“The court expects judgment to be handed down next week. The defendants are invited to stay their hand voluntarily until judgment.”

The judge’s comments were quickly seized upon by Conservative Europe spokesman Mark Francois, who raised a point of order in the House of Commons, calling on ministers to make a statement on the “very important announcement”.

Mr Wheeler said the initial letter was “an insult to the Court and to the people of Britain”.

“You have to ask why the government felt it necessary to rush through the ratification of this Treaty when only last night European leaders agreed to give the Irish ’time and space’ to react after last week’s No vote,” he said.

“The Treaty cannot legally be enforced until all 27 member states have ratified it, so why the rush?”

In a two-day hearing at the High Court earlier this month, Mr Wheeler’s lawyers argued that he had a “legitimate expectation” of a public vote on the Lisbon Treaty after ministers promised a referendum on the failed EU constitution which it replaces.

They said the evidence showed that the Lisbon Treaty and the Constitutional Treaty rejected by voters in France and the Netherlands in 2005 were the same except in name.

Lawyers for the British prime minister and foreign secretary said Mr Wheeler’s application had been brought for the “inappropriate purpose” of seeking to change the political atmosphere by obtaining a court judgment critical of government decisions “for use as a political manifesto”.