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Parliamentary Standards Bill

I am grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend. I am not going to disagree with him on that point, but I am concerned to remove uncertainty in a matter of such importance as this. In passing, I want to pay tribute to Lord Jenkin of Roding for the extremely efficient way that he dealt with this matter in the House of Lords. I shall begin by setting out the problems posed by the European convention on human rights. There has been a great deal of comment, in the House of Lords and elsewhere, about a case in 2003 known as A. v. the United Kingdom. It is a lengthy judgment, and I do not have the slightest intention of going through all the detail, but it did not apply only to the UK. Other nations were concerned about possible intrusion into their privileges—Italy, France, Ireland, Finland, the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria played an active part in the case. It can fairly be said that the case did not settle the question of the application of article 6 of the European convention on human rights. I would go further and say the court concluded that""the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by the Member of Parliament in the present case"—" A. v. the United Kingdom—""pursued the legitimate aims…of protecting free speech in Parliament and maintaining the separation of power between the legislature and the judiciary."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 July 2009; Vol. 712, c. 1420.]" However, that was only with reference to that case, and there is no doubt whatever that the European Court did not exclude the possibility of difficulties in maintaining parliamentary privilege and that the court might in future need to take steps to override, effectively, what is done in this House. The Court continued:""The absolute immunity enjoyed by MPs is moreover designed to protect the interests of Parliament as a whole as opposed to those of individual MPs."" That is part of the Court's reasoning. The Bill would affect individual MPs, so it follows that the Court's nostrum would not be applicable if an MP was concerned whether he had had a fair trial or whether he was affected by the question of free speech or other matters that are included in the convention. The question of the European charter of fundamental rights was not examined in the deliberations in the Lords to any significant or useful extent. The reality is that the charter, which was attached to the Lisbon treaty and which is binding, contains a lot of overlaps with the European convention on human rights. They run parallel, but of course the protocol that incorporates the charter invokes the ECJ. I should like to comment on the problems that I believe would arise in that context. We should also bear it in mind that under the well-established cases of Costa v. ENEL 1964 and cases such as Handelsgesellschaft and Van Gend en Loos, the Court in Luxembourg has made it absolutely explicit that""the laws stemming from the Treaty, an independent source of law…cannot"" because of its special and original""nature be overridden by"" domestic legal provisions,""however framed, without being deprived of its character as Community law and without the legal basis of the Community itself being called into question."" The bottom line is this:""This case…unequivocally declares the supremacy of Community law over inconsistent domestic law, including in particular domestic law introduced after accession. Community law also takes priority over inconsistent provisions of national constitutional law."" It is clear from article 53 of the charter of fundamental rights, which refers to the level of protection, that national constitutions are themselves involved. It states:""Nothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as restricting or adversely affecting human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognised…by Union law and international law and by international agreements to which the Union, the Community or all the Member States are party, including the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and by the Member States' constitutions."" If questions of privilege in relation to article 9 of the Bill of Rights, which includes references to proceedings in Parliament from which all other things flow, such as freedom of speech and so on, as well as the fairness of trials, are to be properly implemented, it is essential that we do not find ourselves in a position where there is any uncertainty about whether European law, and in particular the charter in regard to the ECJ, would override the proceedings of the House.