Letter to the Rt Hon David Miliband MP,
Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs from Jim
Dobbin MP
IRISH GUARANTEES
In the absence of Michael Connarty MP I write
to you as acting Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee.
In its meeting of Wednesday 15 July, the Committee
asked me to follow up in writing on the oral evidence you gave
to the Committee on the Treaty of Lisbon on 2 July. The Committee
still has concerns over the legal status of the Decision on the
Concerns of the Irish People on the Treaty of Lisbon, annexed
to the Council Conclusions of 18 and 19 June, and I would be grateful
if you could provide an answer to each of the following questions.
1. When the Council Conclusions state at paragraph
5 (iii) that the "Decision is legally binding", can
you explain what is meant by "legally binding" in that
context and can you confirm whether or not this means legally
binding on (i) the European Court of Justice and the other institutions
and (ii) EU Member States?
2. You have stated on several occasions that
the Decision is an international agreement. Can you confirm whether
or not EC/EU Treaties have supremacy over this international agreement,
as far as the European Court of Justice is concerned?
3. Following from the question above, do you
agree that as an international agreement the Decision is an aid
to interpretation of the Lisbon Treaty for the European Court
of Justice only in cases of ambiguity, and is not a means of imposing
a fixed interpretation on the Court?
4. If the Decision is not an "instruction"
to the Court, as you stated in your evidence to the Foreign Affairs
Committee on 17 June, how then can it amount to a "legal
guarantee", as stated at paragraph 5(i) of the Council Conclusions?
5. How can Member States give effect to their
obligations towards Ireland under the Lisbon Treaty, as set out
in the Decision, unless it is ratified by national parliaments
so as to require Member States to give effect to the Decision
within their national legal systems and thereby give the Decision
a status equivalent to that of the EU/EC Treaties?
6. Similarly, on what grounds do you say that
the Decision can have effect in UK law without being incorporated
into the list of Treaties in section 1(2) of the European Communities
Act 1972?
7. The Council Conclusions state at paragraph
5 (v) that the "sole purpose of the Protocol will be to give
full Treaty status to the clarifications set out in the Decision".
If a Protocol (with national ratification) is required to give
"full Treaty status" to the Decision, is it not self-evident
that the Decision does not have such "full Treaty status"
until the Protocol is adopted?
20 July 2009
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