Balancing Supremacy: EU Membership and the Constitution

Abstract

Membership of the European Union has had profound consequences for the UK constitution. At root those consequences stem from the twin ideas of direct effect and supremacy on which Community law — the law of the Union — is based. Direct effect means simply that Community law is capable of conferring rights on individuals, which national courts are obliged to uphold. This is in contrast to most treaties which affect only the states that are party to the treaty and not their citizens. In Van Gend en Loos 1 the European Court described the Community as: a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and the subjects of which comprise not only Member States but also their nationals. Independently of the legislation of Member States, Community law therefore not only imposes obligations on individuals but is also intended to confer upon them rights which become part of their legal heritage.2 KeywordsMember StateNational CourtMaastricht TreatySelect CommitteeNational ParliamentThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.