One of the many reasons we should remain within the EU. Time and time again EU law has stopped our government in its tracks or forced it to change direction on overreaching or just plain stupid policy like this.
I'm not totally versed in the details, but I think in this story would be related to Britain making laws that break the European convention on human rights (echr) that Britain agreed to abide by in a fully democratic way following our system of parliament. The European court of justice (ecj) is then the high court responsible for ensuring that countries stick to the agreements they have agreed to stick to. Which we didn't. So they are enforcing that we do.
Now I don't think that's undemocratic. We (as a country) democratically signed a convention, and then future governments failed to uphold that. The ecj stepping in is exactly right.
Like I say, not an expert, but just how I understand it.
I ... you want an external actor, over which you have no control, to have judicial power over your government, because right now the decisions go the way you want them to?
The EU will still be there when we've left. And wether we're in the single market or not, we'll still have to play by their rules on most things. Brexit gives us less control, not more.
And don't get me started on how the US and China are going to make us dance to their tune. And we certainly don't have any control over those two juggernauts.
The EU certainly suffers from a ‘democratic deficit’. It’s a highly complex bureaucracy and the average British person’s knowledge of its institutions, officials, powers, etc. is woeful.
Very few[1] cases that go to ECHR from the UK are sucessful, because ECHR sees the UK as strongly protective of the human rights of its citizens. If the UK stops being protective of my human rights I absolutely want an external actor to have some control. Why wouldn't I?
http://www.e-ir.info/2017/07/27/implications-of-brexit-for-t...
With the overpowered repeal bill, she can use Brexit to get us out of anything with 'E' in the name, without bothering to put it to parliament.
It's precisely these complexities which lead to the perception, held by many British people, that European courts are foreign, and shouldn't have the power to overrule British courts.
You want an external entity to have control over my democratically elected government because right now the decisions aren't your personal preferences.
Germany 82,114,224
U.K. 66,181,585
France 64,979,548
Italy 59,359,900
Spain 46,354,321
So, yep. Most powerful being about 15% of the votes.
Still doesn't make the EU a domestic political institution.