Italian Court tells EU Court -- our sovereignty comes first

    by
    West
    Published on 07-01-2010 11:13 PM
    1 Comment Comments
    The Italians resist European Court primacy. Naturally this attack on the primacy post Lisbon ECHR has not been well publicised....

    By Gerald Warner

    The first blow has been struck against the encroaching tyranny of the European Union and it is a significant one. In fact, one member state has defiantly drawn a line in the sand and signalled that it will not tolerate erosion of its sovereignty. Although it attracted little attention when it was published last month, now that commentators have had an opportunity to analyse Sentenza N. 311 by the Italian Constitutional Court, its monumental significance in rolling back the Lisbon Treaty is now being appreciated. (Hat tip, as they say, to Dr Piero Tozzi.)

    The Constitutional Court ruled baldly that, where rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) conflict with provisions of the Italian Constitution, such decrees “lack legitimacy”. In other words, they will not be enforced in Italy. Although this judgement related to issues concerning the civil service, the universal interpretation is that the ECHR’s aggressive ruling in Lautsi v Italy, seeking to ban crucifixes from Italian classrooms, shortly before, was what concentrated the minds of the judges in the Italian Supreme Court.
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    Comments 1 Comment
    1. Pen Name's Avatar
      Here's a user comment from the Telegraph which puts this in context.
      The European Court of Human Rights is not an institution of the European Union. It is a judicial body of the Council of Europe, which actually predates the EU and counts among its members many non-EU states such as Russia and Turkey.

      The Court operates a ‘name and shame’ policy. It has no jurisdiction in any country. Its rulings can be, and have been, harmlessly ignored.

      If the ECHR finds in favour of those Irish women (it won’t – mark my words), the Irish parliament will be required under its own European Convention on Human Rights Act 2003 to discuss the issue within three weeks, but is not obliged to do anything else. As abortion is prohibited in the Irish constitution, any alteration to abortion laws would necessitate a referendum.
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