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Parliamentary Standards Bill

There is no doubt that the charter of fundamental rights, if incorporated into the treaties, would create all kinds of legal apparatus in the European Union which would overlap with the matters in the Bill—and, indeed, with parliamentary privilege. Article 234 of the charter states unequivocally:""Where any such question is raised in a case pending before a court or tribunal of a Member State against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, that court or tribunal shall bring the matter before the Court of Justice."" There is no question of there being a choice for the national court; there is an obligation on it to refer the case to the European Court of Justice. And, it is no good pretending that those matters in the charter of fundamental rights have nothing to do with free speech, because that is there, in the charter.