eurealist.co.uk

Europe wins the power to jail British citizens The Times

Criminal sanctions to enforce EU law http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/09/14/weulaw14.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/09/14/ixnewstop.html”>The Telegraph

These are the headlines that announce the ECJ decision yesterday that the EU commision will have the power to enforce regulations in environmentallaw. The Times makes the point in its leader “Legal trespass
The European Court has gravely undermined the sovereignty of EU states”
“For the first time in its 53-year existence, the European Court of Justice has given the Commission in Brussels the power to impose criminal sanctions. In a landmark ruling that is as ominous as it is deluded, the Luxembourg-based court yesterday overruled the governments of EU member states, removing from them the sole right to impose their own penalties on people or companies breaking the law, and giving the unelected EU Commission an unprecedented role in the administration of criminal justice.”

But for a more balanced and insightful view turn to Eureferendum which says that “reviewing various press comment, it is clear that all the reporters and editorial writers are having difficulty in understanding what, in fact, is an extremely complex issue, and are also demonstrating their basic lack of understanding of the nature of the European Union.”

“The Times headline is way off the mark with its: “Europe wins the power to jail British citizens”. The Guardian is closer to the mark with: “Brussels wins right to force EU countries to jail polluters”, as is The Telegraph, with “EU laws could be enforced by prison”.

Even these latter two headlines, however, do not actually convey what is happening, and has already happened. Within the treaties, there has always been a requirement that member states enforce community law. Much (in fact most) of the EU law transposed into UK law comes within the criminal code and thereby makes provision for custodial sentences.

The issue here, therefore, is something different. We are actually dealing with a dispute between the Council and the Commission, the former having decided that the power to determine minimum penalties for environmental law resides with it – the ministers of the member states acting collectively as a community institution.

In this, the Commission disagreed, arguing that, since the environment is wholly a community competence, the power to decide penalties resides not solely with the Council. It must fall within the institutional framework, where the nature of the penalties must, in the first instance, be proposed by the commission and then approved, under the co-decision procedure, jointly by the Council and the EU parliament.

What this boils down to, therefore, is a turf war, where the Commission has come head-to-head with the Council, arguing about the powers held by the different institution. In this instance – as so often – the ECJ has come down on the side of the Commission.

In so doing, the ECJ is probably entirely correct, as it acknowledges that reality of what the member states had conceded when they gave the commission the power in the first place – that they had turned it into a government with the right to propose our laws.

As to the end result, for the putative offender, nothing has changed – it is only of academic importance whether they are sent to jail as a result of a Council “framework decision” or a directive of the Council and European Parliament. The fact is that British people have, ever since we joined the Common Market, been subject to EU law and some have been sent to jail as a result, and will continue to be locked up for breaking it.

Our newspapers, therefore, have generated great heat, but little light.