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European Union (Amendment) Bill

I congratulate the noble Lord on making the issue that he raises as clear as it could possibly be. This amendment is as direct, clear and, I respectfully suggest, potentially destructive as any of the other amendments before your Lordships today. There is no way that a regional system of justice can avoid accepting the principle of uniformity. It is essential in the European Union that there should be a court that will give a final interpretation and a final determination on questions of European law. Those decisions must be applicable in every member state of the European Union. That principle of law has been applied for 50 years. It is a principle that, until this amendment, I had not heard challenged with quite such directness. The noble Lord is, of course, perfectly entitled to do so, and I respect his view, but it would mean that in future—leaving aside the areas that he says he would accept as being within the remit of the European court—there can be no area in which any decision of the European court can lay down a principle that must be followed by the national courts. If the principle in this amendment is to apply in the United Kingdom, it should also apply in the member states, and we should now have not six, not 15, not even 25, but 27 and perhaps more judgments and definitions given by the courts of all the countries. The chaos would be absolute. I respectfully submit that this amendment is not one that the Committee should contemplate for a moment accepting or giving effect to.