Sovereignty Of Parliament (European Communities) Bill

A Bill to provide that Community treaties, Community instruments and Community obligations shall only be binding in legal proceedings in the United Kingdom insofar as they do not conflict with a subsequent, expressly inconsistent enactment of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.

This Bill seeks to modify the current constitutional position where EU law takes precedence over UK law. This is an obligation acknowledged by the European Court of Justice in many rulings since the 1960s and enforced in the UK via the European Communities Act 1972.

Key areas

• The Bill aims to ensure that when Parliament adopts a law which it knows conflicts with its obligations under the European Communities Act and which contains wording to that effect (‘this enactment shall take effect notwithstanding the provisions’ of the European Communities Act), then that law should override the Act’s obligations because it is Parliament’s express intention that it should do so
• It seeks to restore the traditional doctrine of implied repeal, an application of parliamentary sovereignty which has been modified by ‘constitutional’ laws such as the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998, in the manner suggested by a ruling of Lord Denning in the case of Macarthy's Ltd v Smith in 1979.