Articles for category: English Articles

The UK House of Lords

The UK does not have a supreme court with power to strike down laws that are contrary to the constitution, human rights and so on. Instead the system relies heavily on intra-parliamentary mechanisms, operating in the House of Lords. While the current unelected composition of the Lords is controversial and difficult to justify rationally, it is widely agreed across the political spectrum that the Chamber discharges its functions in legislative scrutiny and examination of public polices well.

13. Oktober 2014

Bicameralism and its Discontents

Parliamentary second chambers are a common, yet peculiar feature of constitutions worldwide. Their diversity of design and the assorted roles they play in majoritarian democracies are reason enough for a comparative analysis, but there is more: Bicameralism – and its discontents – is in the air. Countries within and outside of Europe have recently made attempts to reform or abolish their respective upper houses. We have asked distinguished scholars from all of these nations to provide us with accounts of the debates in their countries.

12. Oktober 2014

Scotland and the EU: Eleventh hour thoughts on a contested subject

Is the ‘spectre of disintegration’ haunting Europe? Joseph Weiler fears that it is, and that, were an independent Scotland to be admitted as an EU state, this would lead to a domino effect whereby others would demand independence within the EU – testimony of an atavistic, retrogressive mentality, and adverse to the EU’s raison d’etre. This is a strongly put view, and not all will agree with it. Nonetheless, most of the papers in this highly stimulating symposium address, albeit in very different ways, the concern that lies at the base of Weiler’s argument – namely, the character of the EU, the nature of its values, its very reason for being. They also address the more workaday, but nonetheless critical, legal and practical issues that an independent Scotland’s membership pose.

17. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by CHRISTOPHE HILLION

Like many participants in this stimulating symposium, I am in agreement with several of Sionaidh Douglas-Scott’s contentions. But like some others, I am less persuaded by one of her conclusions: namely, that a treaty revision based on Article 48 TEU would suffice to codify an independent Scotland’s membership in the EU. While admittedly unprecedented, such a situation could not in itself warrant a complete disregard of EU membership rules, eg Article 49 TEU. As part of ‘the particular constitution and rules of the EU’, they should instead be applied, given their specific function in the treaties, albeit in a ‘pragmatic and purposive fashion’ in consideration of the existing and future ties between Scotland and the EU.

15. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by CARLOS CLOSA

No one disagrees that an independent Scotland qualifies for EU membership and that it would no doubt become an EU member state. Why then is there so much normative argument around “seamless transition”? It may or may not happen and, should it come it pass, I believe that it may be a good thing, albeit that I fail to see a “normative” case which supports it. Why should third parties guarantee to a self-determining self that its constitutive decision will be costless regardless of any other consideration? This would deprive citizenship of an essential responsibility for decisions taken which I consider indispensable to democracy.

12. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by NEIL WALKER

The presence of the EU both offers a spur to new projects of national sovereignty but also, and in my view more emphatically, it supplies a set of considerations which makes the project of new statehood less pressing, less consequential, and provided we can trust in continuing UK membership of a continuing EU (both of which statuses, of course, need careful attention) less relevant and ultimately unnecessary.

11. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by STEPHEN TIERNEY

I agree with Sionaidh that the accession of an independent Scotland to the European Union is not in any serious doubt. I develop this point in a paper written with Katie Boyle here. In this blog I argue that although accession will no doubt take time, there is unlikely to be any period within which Scotland is effectively cast out of the EU. More speculatively I would like to ask whether there might in fact a duty on the part of the EU to negotiate Scotland’s membership, and whether the Secession Reference to the Supreme Court of Canada may provide an interesting analogy supportive of this argument.

10. September 2014

Scotland in the EU: Comment by DIMITRY KOCHENOV

the Union cannot be possibly expected to throw its weight behind ensuring that there is no choice for the nations seeking independence within Europe – it is not the Union’s realm. The contrary would amount to turning the EU into an instrument of blackmail of the emerging states by the existing state entities which is radically deprived of any purpose and is in strong contradiction with the values of democracy and the rule of law which the Union espouses.

10. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by BRUNO DE WITTE

Whereas the Article 48 route has major advantages over the Article 49 route, and would be feasible – in my view at least – as a matter of legal principle, it would create many complications all the same, both for the Scots and for the rest of Europe.

10. September 2014

Scotland and the EU: Comment by MICHAEL KEATING

To suggest that a nation that has followed the Scottish route should not be allowed into the European family while others with more dubious pedigrees are, would violate basic democratic principles. Effectively, Scotland would be expelled from the union for exercising a widely-recognized democratic right.

9. September 2014