By Anne Palmer
Is the Treaty ESTABLISHING A Constitution for Europe, a Treaty or a Constitution?
What is a Constitution?
I quote from the papers by Jean-Claude Piris, who was the Legal Advisor of the Council of the European Union and was the Legal Advisor of the intergovernmental conferences, which negotiated and adopted the Treaty of Maastricht and the Treaty of Amsterdam.
He looked at Black`s Law Dictionary for the main elements of a Constitution.
A constitution organises the government of the entity to which it applies;
A Constitution prescribes the extent and manner of the exercise of sovereign powers.
A Constitution is the absolute rule of action: any official act in breach of it is illegal (this presupposes a constitutional or supreme court) ”
A Constitution frequently lists rights of the individual and guarantees their protection.
A Constitution derives its authority from the governed and is agreed upon by the people; A constitution is the fundamental law of a nation of state.
(End of quotes.)
Reading down those points, now begs the question, was our entry into the Common Market in 1972 illegal in the first place?
From the reading of Hansard debates on the subject under the heading of “European Communities”, I believe it was illegal. These past few years, the ignoring of our Common Law Constitution by the Government, particularly where the British nationality is specifically mentioned for Magistrates and Police, has been ignored, yet Magna Carta, The Bill of Rights, The Act of Settlement and the Queens Coronation Oath remain the same for they cannot be altered, they are a contract between the people and the Monarch.
I ask, are not these new Acts of Parliament illegal? Are they ultra vires? Can they be challenged? And can those that have fallen foul through the application of them, also challenge and overturn?
The EU Constitution is incorporated into our system by the (Treaty), but once installed, the Constitution then takes over, in exactly the same way that using the European Communities Act to install the original Treaty of Rome, for once installed, the European Community’s laws overruled our Laws.
Some people have said that the Treaties that have gone before are “constitutional”, however, each treaty has been labelled quite clearly, a “Treaty”, the Treaty of Rome, the Treaty of Amsterdam etc. All previous European Community Treaties were developed through the usual diplomatic channels; finalised the same way and ratified by parliament (some through referendum) it has been suggested, (by the EU Parliament) for the Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, that the people should have a referendum.
Even the title, makes clear that to “establish” something, is to set up something “new” “something different”. The Treaty “ESTABLISHES” a Constitution for the European Union as a whole.
By using a “Convention” that took eighteen months to come to fruition, makes the Constitution very different from all the other EU treaties.
All the articles in it that gives itself authority, legal personality, etc, makes it different, it also makes very clear that “the EU Constitution, and law adopted by the Union`s institutions in exercising competences conferred upon it, shall have primacy over the law of the Member states”.
There is no getting away from that. It has to be remembered also, that it IS one constitution for all its member states.
The European Union is lacking some essential elements for it to become the State it so obviously wants to become. And the United Kingdom still has not given away control of its economy, its sterling currency or reserves. But the EU Constitution will go a long way in allowing the Union to gather these elements together. It is as a signal for the beginning of the end of the Nation States.
The dilemma of the High Court Judges and the Law Lords, the highest Judges in the land, now comes under scrutiny. As time went on our Judges must have known that their decisions would in the end destroy this County`s ability to govern itself, their decision in putting the European Unions laws above their own country, as laid down in EU law, would remove the ability of this country`s Government from ever governing again, yet that is what they were doing, and that is what they were meant and had to do.
As I see it, they had no option, they were putting into action what the politicians had bade them to do. That bidding was the acceptance of the European Union treaties, but who advised the politicians that signing these treaties would not remove sovereignty from this country?
We now know the advice given to the then Edward Heath by Lord Kilmuir and I note that this advice was given to Edward Heath not to the Head of State, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
“I pick out Parliament would retain in theory the liberty to repeal the relevant Act or Acts, but I would agree with you that we must act on the assumption that entry into the Community would be irrevocable; we should therefore to accept a position where Parliament had no more power to repeal its own enactments than it has in practice to abrogate the statute of Westminster. In short, Parliament would have to transfer to the Council, or other appropriate organ of the Community, its substantive powers of legislating over the whole area of a very important field”..To confer a sovereign state’s treaty making powers on an international organisation is the first step on the road which leads by way of confederation to the fully federal state..although the treaty-making is vested in the crown, Parliamentary sanction is required for any treaty which involves a change in the law or the imposition of taxation (to take two examples), and we cannot ratify such a treaty unless Parliament consents.
But if binding treaties are to be entered into on our behalf, Parliament must surrender this function and either resign itself to becoming a rubber stamp or give the Community, in effect, the power to amend our domestic laws
. (End of quotes)
The part that Her Majesty might have played in this, was not entered into. I hardly think that Edward Heath told Her Majesty, “We are going to sign this Treaty and by the time the end goal is completed, there will be no Country left for you to be Queen of”, was ever mentioned to her. After all, we are talking of honourable important influential gentlemen that WE, the people, have put into Government. Did our politicians tell us the terrible awful truth? If they could not find the guts to tell the ordinary people, I doubt very much they found the courage to tell her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
Did they tell us two years after when we were asked to vote to remain in this living lie?
The politician`s of this Country entered into a Treaty which they knew from before joining, was incompatible with our Constitution. Cases proving this fact had already made this very clear. Yet still they joined. They knew also that joining the Convention on Human Rights would be incompatible with our Constitution, yet still they joined. The politician`s put their ambitions before their Country. They kept the awful truth of the situation away from the people, and I believe it was also kept away from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
The arguments back and forth in the 1970s were between the politicians in the same way that they were during the debates on citizenship (a momentous decision that affected every one of us) at Maastricht, and now in this present day, we have the same false pretences, that all is well and that the EU constitution is nothing for us to worry our little heads about.
The Cabinet Papers of 1949 released under the thirty year rule, only five years after world war two in which so many people died fighting for this country to remain free of German domination, prove beyond any shadow of doubt the true nature in what form the creation of the proposed forming of the European Community would be. Recorded in Hansard on 16th November 1966 by speaker Mr Stanley Orme MP,
“At a private meeting in the House, M Spaak, who was prominent in the setting up of the Community, explained his concept of what the European Community should be and what it should entail, and his explanation sent shivers down the spines of some of my hon. Friends who are very pro-European. M Spaak`s political concept is that of many statesmen, particularly among the five, excluding France. It is a political issue which we must seriously consider. M Spaak is against the entry of neutrals. He regards the Community purely as an extension of the military based NATO., a further extension of a military alliance. I do not attribute those views to all of my hon. Friends who faviour our entry, but I know that there are many hon. Members on both sides of the House who are interested in the Community not just as an economic unit but as a political unit too. They regard it as a supranational authority of which Britain should be part.”
I have read hundreds of such pages and I wonder how any politician can still hold their heads up for they should hang them in shame forever more. And “today`s” MPs want to strip Lord Archer of his title? He at least served his sentence.
I will end with Lord Kilmuir`s warning,
“I must emphasise that in my view the surrenders of sovereignty involved are serous ones and I think that as a matter of practical politics, it will not be easy to persuade Parliament or the public to accept them. I am sure that it would be a great mistake to under-estimate the force of objection to them. But these objections ought to be brought out into the open now because, if we attempt to gloss over them at this stage, those who are opposed to the whole idea of our joining the Community will certainly seize on them with more damaging affect later on”.
We were not told.
And I come to the conclusion that the price for remaining in and accepting the EU constitution is far too high a price to pay. It was an absolute betrayal of all the people’s trust, it was sheer treachery then and it is absolute treachery now. The Politicians are right in one thing only. Politicians have not changed, only their names have changed, and I am left feeling very sorry that Guy Fawkes was not successful in his gunpowder plot.
