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.
| 
