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Comment by whytai | Hacker News Reader

Why is Poland also listed as an exception?

In short, back then Law and Justice was a ruling party and they are very homophobic (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Poland#Law_and_...). They were worried Charter of Fundamental Rights might force Poland to grant homosexual couples the same kind of benefits which heterosexual couples enjoy.

Opting in after Law and Justice opted out is pretty much impossible because two-thirds majority is needed for that, and Law and Justice would block attempts to do so.

Probably because they negotiated it together - Poland and UK were effectively an alliance in EU institutions for long stretches, united by common defense and economic policies (aggressive NATO stance vs Russia, hardcore free-market support, etc). This is why one of the many effects of Brexit is an increased isolation of Poland and the other Visegrád members, who lost their biggest ally in EU circles.

A bit more pro-market than the French. Hardly hard-core.

Surely for European standards.

Maybe. The Estonians come pretty close to Singaporean standards though. And the rest of the Scandinavians ain't too bad; apart from having high tax they don't interfere in the economy that much.

Countries like Estonia and Luxembourg, although EU members, hold little sway because of their size. Nobody will ever look at them and decide that they set a good model for larger countries.

the British and Polish governments negotiated an opt-out on the Charter

the ECJ later ruled that the opt-opt had no force

Because they have very similar geopolitical views, they both view the EU as mostly an economic institution, are very pro-NATO, they are both free market supporters.

Poland alone isn't enough anymore to keep that view of the EU since the UK left.

The charter is far more than just a bit of geopolitical meandering, it has far-reaching judicial consequences. Since so many things are decided in the courts these days, it's really quite important.

This artifact alone is legitimate grounds for non-participation in any such union.

While I empathise with the sentiment, the alternative to courts with the power to bind all parties — in this case governments — is that any party can violate any agreement at any time without consequence, making all of the agreements meaningless.

No, the alternative is courts that respect the boundaries of treaties. The ECJ can apparently rule that 'The Constitution is Unconstitutional'. Which is a problem.

Deciding what the treaty means is literally the job of the ECJ. I think (in both the sense of ”I believe it is” and “I believe it ought to be“) that that means it gets to decide which bits are or are not conscionable in much the same way and for much the same reasons that the UK courts get to decide that certain things cannot be signed away by contracts under UK law.

"Deciding what the treaty means is literally the job of the ECJ."

And there you have laid the foundation for the obliteration of liberal institutions.

This purview has taken hold in the last 50-ish years around the world, leading to Judicial Supremacy.

I would use a polite term like 'absurd', but I think 'stupid' is a better term for the powers that courts have evolved to have, to the point wherein they de-facto make the law, which is not correct.

If the EU legislators, with 1000's of the nation's top lawyers, cannot enact legislation that is lawful, then something is very deeply wrong. How is it that a handful of other lawyers, sitting in a different institution can have a fundamentally different reading of the same thing?

Any ruling by the court that overturns relatively recent legislation should cause calamity and consternation.

At very least there should be a means to translate legislation into law that facilitates the participation of some officials to make sure that it's legal.

You're effectively advocating parliamentary sovereignty. Which is a British tradition, no doubt - but most other countries aren't operating under these principles, and never did, so it's not a "last 50-ish years" thing.

I don't think Constitutionally-bound legislatures count as 'Parliamentary Sovereignty' moreover, the alternative, 'separation of powers' - is simply not that, it's just 'Judicial Supremacy'.

It's ridiculous that Europe's top lawyers make a treaty, and then some of Europe's other top lawyers say that it's illegal, whilst all reading the same, plain document. If the constitutionality of a law is 'not apparent' to Europe's top lawyers, then it's definitely not apparent to the other lawyers at the ECJ either; there should be a different process for determining the constitutionality of laws, that is separate from more common judicial rulings. And definitely the ECJ should not be able to rule on its own jurisdiction, this is crazy.

Love this bit from Wikipedia:

"The court ruled that the Community constitutes a new legal order, the subjects of which consist of not only the Member States but also their nationals. The principle of direct effect would have had little impact if Union law did not supersede national law. Without supremacy the Member States could simply ignore EU rules. In Costa v ENEL (1964), the court ruled that member states had definitively transferred sovereign rights to the Community and Union law could not be overridden by domestic law."

These are revolutionary proclamations.

"Oh, by the way, that treaty you signed that you thought meant that thing, well, we're going to rule that we have all the power. So, guess what, it meant something you didn't understand, and what you didn't know is that you were literally handing over sovereignty to us. Thanks, we own you now"

Free market supporters you say? Current government is forcing state owned companies to buy bankrupt companies and subsidize them, just because they are 'Polish' (examples: PESA, Autosan). The government also tries to nationalize some private banks, price of electricity is no longer 'free' and is now regulated. When subsidies are illegal, the government offers back payments for final users. Coal mines and power stations are expanded, and we already know that they won't be economically viable. Renewable energy sources have been successfully blocked by absurd requirements (for example distance of newly constructed wind turbines from other buildings makes 99% of Poland not suitable for such investments).

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