EU: Justice Opt-ins

Lord Spicer Excerpts

Wednesday 10th December 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Spicer]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what are their plans for resisting further extensions of United Kingdom opt-ins to a European corpus juris.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, there is no proposal for a European corpus juris. Any proposals to extend EU jurisdiction in criminal law would be subject to the UK’s existing justice and home affairs opt-in, which allows us to choose whether we take part. Those decisions are taken in full consultation with Parliament.

[Lord Spicer (Con)]

My Lords, with the 35 opt-ins to the European criminal law now in place, and with the powers that the European court has to make law, are we not now in very real danger of losing the presumption of innocence, the jury system, case law and habeas corpus?

[Lord Bates]

We have been very clear that, as the treaty of Lisbon states, the presumption as regards criminal law should be that we operate by mutual recognition rather than harmonisation. We have taken very clear steps to say that, because we have the ability to opt in under the Lisbon treaty, we exercise that choice. That is the reason why the Prime Minister decided to opt out of 135 measures before opting back in to 35; otherwise, European Court of Justice jurisdiction would have extended to all of those. Therefore I recognise the noble Lord’s point, but the Prime Minister is arguing our case well.