Applied Law - QCF (Edexcel)

European Union

What the EU is - The European Union (EU) is a political and economic organisation that arose from the European Economic Community (EEC) (1993). The EU is in charge of making policies for Member States and allows for the unification of political and economic trading partnerships, it is made up of two treaties, the Treaty of Rome (1957) and the Maastricht Treaty (1993) which lay down the principles and reflect on how the EU works.

Institutions within the EU- The EU is made up of four institutions, the Council of the European Union, The European Commision, The European Parliament and The European Court of Justice. The Council of the European Union represents all the national governments of the Member States and they send a delegate to negotiate, enact, amend and coordinate new laws and policies and they will meet twice a year and the majority vote in favour - this sometimes must be unanimous.  Economic, environmental, and agricultural issues are dealt with by the European Commission. The Commission drafts legislation and regulations, controls EU law enforcement, budgets, and acts as a treaty protector. The European Parliament does not have the authority to make laws, but it can debate bills and try to amend them. They can admit their own members and block proposed legislation. The European Court of Justice, headquartered in Luxembourg, has 27 judges who handle cases brought by Member States based on EU law. The ECJ is responsible for overseeing the implementation and interpretation of EU law - they can check the member states and annul acts that violate EU law.

Regulations and Directives
What is a regulation? A regulation is directly applicable in each place and binding in respect, these can be relied upon in a UK court.
Regulations Case - An example of an EU case in reference to EU regulations would be Van Duyn v Home Office (1974) the claimant, a Dutch national wanted a work permit to work in the UK and sought to challenge the defendant's refusal - it was held that the defendant had every right to refuse this permit. *

What is a directive? A directive tells member states to use the EU laws and make them correlate with their own but also allows implementation flexibility.
Directives Case - An example of an EU case in reference to EU directives would be the case of Francovich v Italian Republic (1991), the claimants’ company went into liquidation so they applied for compensation as he had unpaid salaries, because there was no directive under the provisions of directive it was held that the defendant had an obligation to compensate individuals that suffered loss due to the fact that a directive was not in place. An example of when the UK has implemented directives is the Consumer Protection Act 1987, this is the first time a directive was implemented through an Act of Parliament. Directive through Statutory Instrument (UK) - An example of when the UK has introduced a directive through Statutory Instrument is the Working Time Regulations (1998), this allows rights for the amount of time people are allowed to work.

What is a Treaty? A treaty has a direct effect and will automatically become a relied on law.
Treaty Case - An example of a treaty case is Van Duyn v Home Office (1974) (shown above*), and it involves a treaty as even though the UK didn’t specifically implement the EU treaty into their law that because of EU law the TFEU article 45(3) was applicable.

Conflict between the EU & Member States’ Laws
Conflict case - In any conflicts EU takes precedence over UK law, a case example of this would be the case of Costa v ENEL (1964), the claimant shares in an electricity supply company and he didn't want the defendant electric company to be national and wanted to move his electric bill to his company, he claimed that nationalisation of electricity was in violation of the Treaty of Rome but it was held that the treaty had no direct issue to this effect so the case was dismissed. Conflict case (2) - R v Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte Factortame ECJ (1990), British legislation stated that a ship registered to Britain requires most of the owners to be British nationally so a group of Spanish citizens requested this be reviewed and EU laws said otherwise so the case was approved - Member States cannot rely on their own law when it conflicts with the EU law, this means that they have transferred their ‘sovereign legal rights’, this premise stands in all courts of law around the UK and other Member States. In the case of Secretary of State for the Home Department v CS (2016), the ECJ held that a woman could not deported because she had a criminal record as it goes against her freedom of movement and her rights of residence - this stands for all citizens in the Member States but however if the UK thought it would be a good idea for safeguarding public security, they could do so.

Britain has since left the EU on the 31st of January 2020 with a Trade and Cooperation agreement.