By joining the European Union, the UK's doctrine of Parliamentary Essay

By joining the European Union, the UK's doctrine of Parliamentary Sovereignty has been considerably limited and changed, Discu - Essay Example The establishment of the European Union has weakened the traditional supremacy of the Parliament and affecting greatly the power sharing within the country. The current view of the powers of the Parliament is very different from the one that Dicey was talking about. Apart from the European Union, factors relating to the Human Rights Act of 1998 as well as the developments in the common law have greatly hampered the authority of the United Kingdom’s Parliamentary supremacy. The battle of supremacy has seen the parliament lose in some cases that were initially under its jurisdiction. In a case involving the oil giant, Trafigura and The Guardian newspaper in 2009, there was absolute non-adherence to the Bill of Rights as stipulated in the 1689 provision. The company was able to have the freedom of expression on parliamentary debates restricted to for several media platforms, The Guardian being one of them. This issue presented a test for parliamentary supremacy and its shakiness in the current forms. The fact that they were bent by a private organization brings situations where it is likely that they can bend several rules for specific interests courtesy of the provisions of the European Union Law. ... Another case that demonstrates the authority of the European Union over the United Kingdom Parliament was the one involving Van Gend En Loos3. The court ruled that â€Å"the member States have limited their sovereign rights, and albeit within limited fields, have created a body of law which binds both nationals and themselves†. This means that the country’s systems are inferior to those of the ones by the European Union. In its actual terms, the ruling provides that there is no law among the member sates that is capable of surpassing that of the European Union, the same applies to the institutions of the Union as opposed to those of the regional block. The law is becoming superior in diverse ways with several in-country as well as regional cases being given the European Union interpretation of the law. The European Community Act is a very important legal tool as far as the supremacy of the European Union is concerned. Passed in 1972, the law in section 2 has a provision requiring that all the preexisting statutes and the ones to be enacted must and should abide by the European Union Law, a situation that binds the United Kingdom Parliament to adherence with the directives of the law. This means that the Diceyian view of the supremacy of the Parliament is completely eroded, apart from being challenged by the successive parliaments; an Act of Parliament can be challenged by the European Law effectively. Section 3 of the 1972 Act provides that the decisions of the European Union Court of Justice binds all the tribunals and courts, this includes the United Kingdom’s parliament. Other treaties have been enacted crippling further the role of the United States Parliament, the most recent is the Treaty