Judiciary and Fundamental Rights

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. We are not discussing the broader question of scrutiny of all European matters. This is specifically a debate that is mainly about Croatia, and I therefore hope that the hon. Lady will now come back to that subject. She has got her point on the record, and so has the hon. Gentleman.

[Andrea Leadsom]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I accept your guidance entirely. Nevertheless, I would just like to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Martin Horwood). I do agree that scrutiny, particularly of Croatia—

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. The hon. Lady must respond only with regard to Croatia. I hope that she will not respond to the hon. Gentleman’s point about his party’s proposals for scrutiny. We are not discussing that; we are discussing Croatia.

[Andrea Leadsom]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I remind hon. Members that this is a timed debate that is due to end at 22 minutes past 9, and that I shall want to give a few minutes to the Minister to say a few words in response. I ask Members to bear that in mind so that we can fit everybody in.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD)]

I aim to be very quick. I found chapter 23 very interesting, as it is the first time that that chapter has been used for the accession of a country. We have perhaps now hit the Groucho Marx threshold for Europe—that we would not be allowed to join the EU because our standards are not high enough to do so. It is somewhat complacent to imply that the standards of our judicial system are always higher than those in Croatia. I spent some time comparing and contrasting the case X v. Croatia and RP and Others v. the United Kingdom. If I have enough time, I will come back to that later.

If we look through the document outlining the EU’s response, we find the following statement:

“The EU underlines the importance of Croatia improving publication of and access to final court decisions both in the interests of the development of case law and consistent judicial practice, and in view of wider public dissemination.”

Well, the UK has a massive problem here. Many judgments are not handed down by the judge—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. That is not relevant to our debate, which concerns the documents before us about Croatia. I would be grateful if, in the few minutes left to him that will enable the Minister to reply, the hon. Gentleman stuck to this evening’s subject of debate.

[John Hemming]

I think it important to examine the issues raised by chapter 23, however, and to compare X v. Croatia with RP and Others v. the United Kingdom. In the former case, a mother’s mental capacity was removed from her and she was told that she had no locus in the Croatian courts. She had a second opinion, which was taken through the whole Croatian court system. The domestic court system was involved in exactly the same way in the latter case, but the woman had no second opinion. In my view, the Croatian system is far better.

I highlighted the issue of judgments in the accession document. There is also the question of the anti-corruption commission. The document states:

“The EU also calls on Croatia to ensure full implementation of its system for monitoring and verification of assets declarations of public officials and judges”.

According to the Groucho Marx test, this is now a club that we would not be allowed to join, because we do not operate that sort of system here.

I think it complacent to assume that countries such as Croatia are behind the United Kingdom. The chapter 23 requirements have already pushed Croatia into doing things that we do not do here. The hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) may be pleased to find that in future years we might be expelled for not complying with the conditions with which Croatia complies, but I do not take the same view as him on the European Union. I think that extending the EU is a good idea. Most of the people who argue that we should leave it argue that we should be in the European economic area, which allows freedom of movement throughout Europe. I also disagree with the hon. Gentleman about whether people qualify for habitual residency as a consequence of declaring self-employment, because I do not think that such a declaration qualifies people for habitual residency immediately.

I think that we should consider not just Croatia but whether we satisfy the conditions in chapter 23, but given that I cannot cite any examples of how we fail to satisfy those conditions, I will leave that to the Minister.