The Queen’s
speech and retained EU Law
The Queen's
Speech was delivered on 10 May 2022. Among
the draft bills tabled for the 2022-2023 session that have attracted
comparatively less attention is the proposed Retained EU Law Bill (or, in
populist parlance, ‘the Brexit Freedoms Bill’).
The starting
point is that section 5 of the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 gives retained EU law
supremacy over conflicting UK law passed or made before the end of the
transition period to 1 January 2021.
The proposed
legislation will provide new powers to amend, repeal or replace retained EU law
by reducing "the need to always use primary legislation to do so", and
modernise the UK's approach to making regulations. It may be asked what is going to be added as
the government already has a range of powers to amend retained EU law. Using secondary legislation to unravel
retained EU law would be subject to much less scrutiny.
It is now
proposed to remove the supremacy of retained EU law over UK law. This will ensure that EU-derived law no
longer takes priority over Acts of the UK Parliament. The notion of the supremacy of EU law
post-Brexit was always a difficult concept given that the supremacy of EU law
was itself a product of EU membership.
To talk of continued EU law supremacy post withdrawal requires a new way
of thinking.
The Bill is expected
to be ready in the summer of 2022.
No comments:
Post a Comment