Source: https://policyexchange.org.uk/eu-citizens-rights-after-brexit-the-eus-demands-for-extra-territorial-jurisdiction-by-the-cjeu-and-reverse-discrimination/
Timestamp: 2017-08-21 23:40:07
Document Index: 293827292

Matched Legal Cases: ['CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ']

EU citizens’ rights after Brexit: The EU’s demands for extra-territorial jurisdiction by the CJEU and reverse discrimination | Policy Exchange
By Dr Gunnar Beck
The tremors caused by the general election are still working their way through the political system. The implications for the nature of the UK’s future relationship with the EU have been the subject of much speculation. Before too long, however, the Government must grapple with pressing questions about EU citizens’ rights and the future role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in our domestic affairs. Whilst much of the country was focused on domestic politics over the last month or so, the EU Commission has been adopting an increasingly punitive stance in the forthcoming Brexit negotiations. In a negotiating position paper on EU citizens’ rights communicated to the UK Government on 12 June 2017, the Commission calls some third country nationals, to be guaranteed existing EU law-derived rights in perpetuity within the UK – rights which, in some cases, exceed the rights of UK citizens. Moreover, the paper suggests that the Commission itself should continue to monitor the observance of EU citizens’ rights in this country even after the UK’s exit from the EU. Finally, the Commission demands that these rights should continue to be interpreted by, and directly enforceable in, the CJEU in Luxembourg.
The Commission’s recent paper represents a remarkable hardening of the European Council’s position on the rights of EU nationals in the UK as set out in the Council’s negotiating guidelines under Article 50 TEU, issued on 29 April 2017. The April Guidelines, in broad terms, called for reciprocal guarantees to safeguard the status and rights derived from EU law of EU and British citizens in Britain and the remaining 27 EU countries at the time of Britain’s withdrawal. Such guarantees should be ‘effective and enforceable’ and EU citizens should be entitled to ‘smooth and simple administrative procedures.’ There is no mention either of continuing CJEU jurisdiction or any monitoring or supervisory role for the European Commission within the United Kingdom. Finally, the European Council calls for equal treatment and mutual rights’ guarantees between Britain and the UK – no less but also no more.
International treaties commonly provide for the settlement of disputes by binding international adjudication. This may be by bilateral tribunals or arbitral bodies set up under a specific treaty, or by permanent international courts or bodies, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague, the WTO Appellate Body and even the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. In all disputes involving the interpretation of treaties, the international tribunals or arbitral bodies are constituted in a manner that is strictly neutral and balanced between the treaty parties. In international arbitrations, for instance, the chairman or president typically has to be agreed by the parties, or in default of agreement nominated by a neutral third party.
Sovereign states do not generally submit in an international treaty to adjudication of disputes by the courts of the other party to the treaty. This is not only common international practice, but also the general practice of the European Union in its treaties with non-Member states (so-called “third countries”). The EU currently has in excess of 50 association or free trade agreements with third countries in place, in addition to several pending trade and other economic co-operation agreements. In none of them does the third country – not even the tiny states of San Marino or Andorra – submit to the jurisdiction of the CJEU as the Commission proposes for the United Kingdom. Amongst the EU’s trade agreements only two provide for the application of CJEU case law by the third country, but even these agreements do so without establishing direct jurisdiction by the CJEU as demanded by the Commission of the UK. The EU-Turkey customs union agreement requires Turkey to apply the common rules of the customs union including relevant CJEU case law, whilst under the EEA agreement the so- called EFTA court ensures the consistent application in the non-EU countries of the common rules of the internal market as interpreted by the CJEU. Neither agreement, however, provides for direct CJEU jurisdiction over the non-EU party.
First, the CJEU has never seen itself as an impartial arbiter in disputes between the EU and member states but as a guardian of the Union interest and a motor of great harmonisation and ‘ever closer union’ or what it itself, in its judgments, occasionally refers to as ‘the spirt of the Treaties.’ Once the UK has left, the court will accord it even less respect as the UK will no longer be represented by a UK judge and Advocate-General on the court and revert to being a foreign state from the EU’s perspective. Moreover, compared to higher national and other international courts the CJEU, in common only with the ECtHR, follows a teleological interpretative approach which allows it to disregard the ordinary meaning of legislation not only where the wording is patently ambiguous or unclear but also where it feels that the wording may conflict or fall short of the integrationist purposes of the EU Treaties as the CJEU sees them. Purposive interpretations generally give courts greater interpretative discretion than a literal approach, and with this comes a real danger that such discretion may not be exercised impartially. This risk is magnified if the court in question is not, in its composition, balanced between the parties to a treaty.
The Government’s White Paper on the Great Repeal Bill so far resists the EU’s demand for special extra-territorial jurisdiction over EU citizens resident in the UK. Subject to this proviso, however, it proposes that the Great Repeal Bill ensure that, as far as possible, the same laws and rules will apply on the day after the UK leaves as before. To maximise legal continuity, the Bill would preserve domestic legislation giving effect to EU law together with directly effective rights in the EU Treaties and directly applicable EU law which will be converted into domestic law. The only major exception would be the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights which will cease to apply in Britain after Brexit day. Finally, to ensure continuity of legal interpretation the Bill would provide that pre-Brexit case law of the CJEU will be given the same binding precedent status in domestic law as decisions of the UK Supreme Court.
The principle of non-discrimination on the grounds of nationality has long been an established tenet of the EU Treaties. Since the late 1990s the CJEU has heavily relied on this principle to strengthen the rights of migrant EU citizens and their family members, in some cases beyond the rights and entitlements of the domestic population. Reverse discrimination in favour of non-national EU residents has arisen in particular in family reunification cases involving the residency claims of non-EU national family members. As a general rule EU citizenship rights including the derived rights of their EU and non-EU family members arise only in ‘migrant situations’, i.e. in circumstances where a citizen of an EU member state decides to work and/or live in another member state.
However, in the case of Ruiz Zambrano the CJEU held that it was unlawful for a member state to refuse residence and work permits to third country parents of children with EU nationality if the refusal had the ‘effect of depriving the Union citizen (i.e. the child) of the genuine enjoyment of his rights as an EU citizen.’ In Zambrano, the underage EU citizens had never travelled to another EU country, and, in fact, never left their country of birth. Such purely ‘internal situations’ are outside the scope of the EU Treaties and consequently solely a matter of national immigration law. The CJEU’s decision is therefore in clear breach of the principle of conferral which states the EU may only legislate in areas where law-making powers have been conferred on it in the Treaties. The CJEU nevertheless confirmed the ruling in Zambrano in a series of subsequent cases. In an initial opinion published a few days ago the CJEU’s Advocate-General submits that migrant EU citizens should retain the non-Treaty based and judge-made right to family reunification with third country nationals even once they have been naturalised in their host country, e.g. the United Kingdom, and acquired either dual or a new nationality. In the great majority of cases the CJEU adopts the Advocate General’s recommendation. If so, the judgment would preserve the privileged status of EU residents in Britain even once they have acquired UK citizenship.
Dr Gunnar Beck is Reader in Law at SOAS, University of London Read Full Bio
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