Justice issues in Europe - Justice Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers 115-119)

JODIE BLACKSTOCK, JAGO RUSSELL AND NUALA MOLE

8 DECEMBER 2009

  Q115 Chairman: Welcome, Ms Blackstock, from JUSTICE, an organisation we are already familiar with, Ms Mole from AIRE. What does AIRE stand for?

Nuala Mole: Advice on Individual Rights in Europe.

  Q116  Chairman: Thank you for that. And Mr Russell, whom some of us know—because when you were in the Scrutiny Unit you helped us with our inquiry into ecclesiastical appointments—

  Jago Russell: Indeed, I did, yes.

  Q117  Chairman: —which seemed to have some influence on subsequent events, having been at Amnesty International, I think, in between, were you not?

  Jago Russell: I was at Liberty.

  Q118  Chairman: I am sorry, Liberty, and now you are at Fair Trials International. The three of you are here because we are looking at justice issues in Europe. I thought I would start by asking you: do you have particular concerns about developments that will arise now that the Lisbon Treaty has come into force within the last week or so?

  Nuala Mole: On the cross-border criminal justice issues?

  Q119  Chairman: Yes. Our inquiry is about criminal justice issues. We are not here to discuss any of the wider or other issues about the Lisbon Treaty.

  Nuala Mole: We had all hoped, rather vainly it turns out, that the Lisbon Treaty would mean that when the third pillar moved into the first pillar, or rather we lost the pillars altogether, the two new Treaties, the TEU and the TFEU (the Treaty on the European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union), would moved into being a single unit so that everybody was involved in all the legislation. We hoped that this would mean that, unless they had specifically negotiated an opt-out, UK courts would be able to refer complex questions about the implementation of the EU cross-border justice measures to the ECJ.


 
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