‘Stop dictating to us!’ Raab announces new plan to curtail power of EU courts in UK
Oliver Mundell and Michael Stewart clash during Brexit debate
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Mr Raab’s planned “mechanism” is aimed at giving the UK Government the power to introduce ad hoc legislation to “correct” court judgments that ministers believe are “incorrect”. However, there is a fear this could endanger the separation of the judiciary from the executive, which is one of the hallmarks of democracy. Speaking to the Daily Telegraph Mr Raab said: “We want the Supreme Court to have the last word on interpreting the laws of the land, not the Strasbourg court.
“We also want to protect and preserve the prerogatives of Parliament from being whittled away by judicial legislation, abroad or indeed at home.”
The Government’s Justice Secretary suggested he would overhaul the Human Rights Act to stop the EU from interfering in British judicial procedures.
He said he was devising ways to curtail the ECJ’s influence in the UK.
Mr Raab added: “If you read the negotiating history to the European Convention, it was never supposed to have an extraterritorial effect.
“I think that’s wrong, that any court is effectively through judicial legislation, creating new law rather than just applying it.
“So I think we will want to have a look at that.”
Mr Raab suggested the Government could introduce legislation to “correct” EU court judgments that affect legal rulings within the UK.
In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, he stated that these plans would mean the police and health service could not be “dictated to” by judges in Strasbourg.
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Mr Raab said the European Court of Human Rights was imposing too many “obligations on the state” rather than simply defending individuals from “undue interference”.
He hit out against a stipulation in the Human rights Act that states UK judges must take European Court of Human Rights decisions “into account”.
He added: “I don’t think it’s the job of the European Court in Strasburg to be dictating things to, whether it’s the NHS, whether it’s our welfare provision, or whether it’s our police forces.”
He added that these public services should be governed by “elected lawmakers” rather than “judicial legislation”.
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He also warned that foreign criminals’ use of the Act’s “right to family life” remained a “serious issue” that he intended to address.
The former Foreign Secretary added that there are “somewhere between 100 and 200 cases a year whereby foreign national offenders are frustrating deportation orders.”
Mr Raab first announced he would attempt an “overhaul” of the Human Rights Act at the Conservatives’ annual conference.
He has also warned that judicial reviews within the UK were being used to “harpoon” major infrastructure projects.
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