A fine kettle of fish

On 11th March, 2008 in the evening, MPs in the House of Commons voted by 346 to 206 for what was effectively the Treaty of Lisbon, if ratified, to become English Law, read Jurist here. In doing so, however, quite extraordinarily in my view, (indeed I remain in a state of some considerable degree of shock over this which rendered me incapable of blogging throughout yesterday) what they actually voted for was the defeat of the following: That this House declines to give a Third Reading to the European Union (Amendment) Bill because it does not protect the Parliament of the United Kingdom itself or its enactments from judicial rulings of the European Court of Justice and of the Courts of the United Kingdom. In other words, should the Lisbon Treaty be ratified, an event now almost entirely in the hands of their Lordships in the 'other place' as far as the UK is concerned, thereafter this House of Commons is entirely at ease with being overruled and indeed subservient to the judiciary in the European Court of Justice and the UK. Of course the Lisbon Treaty also is at some risk elsewhere on the Continent, from its workplace implications across Scandinavia, the German Constitutional Court consideration and the Irish Referendum to name but three pending complications, but let's assume for a moment it goes ahead - where will the House of Commons, and it follows the British electors, then stand? Well at first look it might seem simple, no House of Commons can supposedly bind its successors, but other changes have been afoot again at the behest of the EU. The butchering of the role of Lord Chancellor who was the head of the judiciary and sat on the woolsack in the Lords has already been accomplished by BLiar and Lord Falconer - a new Supreme Court for the UK is under construction close to the Parliament it will then rule, read here. At first it appeared the main effect of this seemed to be the Justice Minister trying to walk backwards after handing the 'gracious speech' to Her Majesty (an art he should easily have accomplished having never seen what lay ahead throughout his political career), but now we see the full potential of the EU's insistence that the Head of the UK's judiciary be separated from that of the Government. Now we seem to face a new ruler and this House of Commons seems to have provided such future Lord Chief's of Justice (Supreme Justices or whatever they be called) a powerful basis to argue that, in future, other parliaments will be unable to regain the powers thrown away last Tuesday. As Bill Cash MP asked the Speaker on a Point of Order after the debate - what value now has the parliamentary mace other than for scrap? A neat constitutional trap appears to have been sprung, but where does that leave us? The Commons seems for this parliament to now be in the hands of the Lords - let us trust they show more constitutional awareness and soundness of voting choices! I will blog further on this as my concerns coalesce into some tentative conclusions.