The Doctrine Of Supremacy Of The Eu Law

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The doctrine of Supremacy of the EU Law has been adopted from the European Court of Justice, in which the doctrine covers all aspects of law in member states. The supremacy is evidently implied in the Treaty on European Union Article 4(3) and Treaty of the functioning of the European Union Article 18 , which emphasises the prohibitions against discrimination. This is then supported by Article 288 TFEU whereby the regulations are binding upon each member state. Furthermore, Article 344 TFEU ensures resolution between member states. This assignment will discuss to what extent the acceptance of the supremacy of the EU law has been problematic in regards to parliamentary sovereignty. Parliamentary sovereignty is a vital principle in the U.K constitution, which demonstrates that there are no legal limitations for parliament when creating/ending any legislation. The extent of impact Parliamentary sovereignty has is that nothing can override the legislation of parliament and it is impossible to bind future parliaments. However, these principles put forward by a constitutional law theorist Dicey, arguably do present political limits to parliamentary sovereignty. When the European law was incorporated in the U.K, parliamentary sovereignty was abdicated to the EU which prioritised European law. Thus, parliament had abdicated its power to another body which is referred to as the transfer of powers. To overcome the issue of EU Supremacy and parliamentary sovereignty the European Communities Act 1972 was passed in order to avoid conflicting views. The European Communities Act provides that s 2(1) has direct effect of EU law provisions which suggests EU law regulations are automatically binding upon parliament without the need of creating new ... ... middle of paper ... ...matters. To summarise, the EU act 2011 does not alter the situation but it does allow the UK citizens to vote on whether there should be any further transfer of powers to the EU. Alongside treaty amendments through a referendum. In regards to the future of parliamentary sovereignty, the referendum in 2017 may alter the whole situation completely. The outcome of opting out of the EU would result in blocking EU legislation and parliament would achieve greater power. EU supremacy could also decrease significantly within a period of time as the UK supports a “red card” system which allows rights to member states to disregard unwanted directives. If the UK remains in the European Union, EU supremacy will always manage to override parliamentary sovereignty. The solution for this would suggest that the UK should not remain as a member of the EU in order gain full control.

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