Court will not have power to suspend rights
The purpose of my letter published by the Irish Examiner on July 29 was not to interfere in the debate in Ireland on the EU constitution but to clarify for your readers aspects of the text which Mr Flanagan apparently misunderstood in his earlier letter.
His latest correspondence goes over much the same ground and does not require further comment from me, with the exception of the attack he has now launched on the European Court of Justice, to which he ascribes a number of imagined powers.
He suggests that the court will have the final say regarding fundamental rights which are incorporated in a new charter and that it will be able to suspend these rights. Neither is true.
Perhaps Mr Flanagan could cite for your readers what provision of the charter accords such a role to the court?
He also claims that the court will have the final say in what powers will belong to the union and those that will remain with the member state governments.
I know of no provision of the Constitution or other document that would substantiate this statement? Perhaps Mr Flanagan would be good enough to oblige us with chapter and verse.
Quite to the contrary, the constitution specifically states (article I-9) that “the union shall act within the limits of the competences conferred upon it by the member states in the constitution. Competences not conferred on the union in the constitution remain with the member states”.
Mr Flanagan is also very wide of the mark in stating that the court has made sure EU law has primacy over national constitutions. What evidence has he to offer to justify this statement?
Not only will the court not be able to override national constitutions, the EU constitution itself will not do so. The court’s primary responsibility is to ensure that EU treaties and laws derived from them are correctly interpreted and applied. It follows from this treaty-based responsibility that the court’s decision is final in matters of EU law, but this is a far cry from superseding national constitutions whose interpretation has always been, and will remain, a matter for national courts.
The court is not even the sole arbiter in matters of European law; the courts of each member state also have a shared responsibility.
And far from seeking a monopoly function the court actually encourages national courts to play a more active part in deciding matters of EU law.
Peter Doyle
Director
European Commission Representation in Ireland
European Union House
18 Dawson Street
Dublin 2
