Topic:
Compare & Contrast the different forms of EU law & explain the constitutional issues EU law create for the UK’s political & lega
Compare & Contrast the different forms of EU law & explain the constitutional issues EU law create for the UK’s political & legal systems ( this is the title ). So my subject is English Legal System, and the topic provided previously is going to be the essay.Sources:
Students should research the topic using the textbook and other books available in the University library listed in the Recommended Reading. They should also use materials provided on Canvas and, if necessary, materials from the internet. All of these should be listed in the Bibliography and sources when cited, referenced, in the essay. The essay will be marked according to the Assessment Criteria, which follows this section.
In addition to submitting the essay, students must submit their notes and essay plan to show the process they followed in developing their answer.
Essay Structure:
An Introduction: This should introduce the topic of the essay providing necessary definitions and background context. It should also make clear what the task is and how it will be addressed.
The body of the essay should contain the following sections.
The Topic:
This section of the essay should demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the subject being discussed. It should be organised into clear paragraphs and so developing this understanding by making the links between them clear, where it is appropriate.
The Task: This section of the essay should address the specific question that is being asked about the topic. It should make reference to the key cases (where relevant) and explain how they relate to the issue being discussed.
The Conclusion: This section of the essay should show the student’s position in the relation to what has come before and, if necessary, summarise the key points that have been made.
In addition, marks are allocated for following this, or an alternative, structure so that the essay is organised in a way that enables a clear and logical development of an answer.
There are also marks for the grammatical accuracy of the English, the general clarity of expression and the technical aspects of academic writing.
Compare & Contrast the different forms of EU law & explain the constitutional issues EU law create for the UK’s political & legal systems
Introduction
The European Union has several legal instruments that have been created that help in implementing and coordinating policies to ensure that initiated programs and measures are well implemented and facilitated within agreed terms and conditions of the members. EU Law is one of these legal instruments within the European Union legal instruments. EU Laws were formed from two main sources: the Treaty on European Union (TEU) and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). The EU member countries formed the two treaties that end up defining most of the aspects provided in the EU Law (Borchardt, 2010, 80). The TEU focus is on the principles of human rights, democratic principles, common provision, institutions provision, enhanced corporation provisions, and principles concerning the general external actions and specific provisions on common foreign and security policy. When it comes to the TFEU treaty, the member countries focused on the expansion of all principles and fields of policy which falls under the legislation of the EU. Just like other international agreements, the TEU and TFEU treaties provided sources by which the EU Laws was drafted from. This paper provides several forms of EU law by comparing and contrasting them. The paper also examines the constitutional issues that the EU law creates for UK’s political and legal system.
The Topic
EU law that has enhanced the achievement of the EU objectives and policies are divided into two main sources: the primary law and the secondary law. The primary sources of the EU law include the EU treaties. The EU treaties contain the basic provision of the EU objective, its organization, modules operandi, and parts of its economic laws. The treaties involve various annexes, protocols attachments, appendices, and they normally undergo amendments or additions. The treaties are created directly by union members making them the primary Union law. The secondary sources include legal instruments and international agreements. The legal instruments as the secondary source of EU law consist of legislative acts, implementing acts, and delegated acts. Legislative acts are legal legislative that adopted through an ordinary or a special legislative process which is defined in the Article 289 TFEU.
Delegated acts defined by Article 290 of TFEU ae non-legislative acts that involve general or binding application in order to amend or supplement certain non-essential elements of a legislative act. The Commission of EU adopts the delegated acts with a defined objective, scope, duration, and content of the acts stipulated in the legislative act concerned. Implementing act which is adopted by the Commission and by the Council within certain circumstances involves providing the measures by which implementation of certain binding EU legal acts are done by member countries according to the countries’ national provision (Borchardt, 2010, 81). The international agreement as a secondary source of EU law concerns the role that the EU plays at an international level. Since there is a need for the EU to interact both politically, socially, and economically with other countries in the world, the internal agreements set the relations platform through agreements with non-member countries and international organizations. The agreements range from association agreements including cooperation in trade, financial sectors, and industrials; technical agreements, and social field agreements.
The Task
This section focusses on two different tasks. The first task is to find similarities and differences in different forms of EU la while the second involves providing constitutional issues EU law creates for the UK’s political and legal system. The forms of EU law in focus for the first task include regulations, directives, and decisions. Regulations are legal acts that enable the EU institutions to impact furthest on the domestic legal system of member states. The features of regulations as EU laws incorporate its implementation which is throughout all Member States, it is also direct applicability to the Member States just as the nation own law (Telegraph Media Group Limited, 2019). The regulations have the power to override the nation laws dealing with the subject matter being stipulated by the regulation law. The second form of EU law is directives. Directives are binding law but not directly applicable as they require the Member States to put them into implementation with no dictating from the EU on the way they will achieve the anticipated results. In most cases, member states have conduct transposition in order to achieve the correct implementation of directives. The last form of EU law is the decisions. Decisions features include being individually applicable, being binging in its entity, and that it is only directly binding to those to whom it is addressed to.
The distinguishing factors among the three forms of EU are derived from their characteristics. Decisions are distinguished from regulations due to it being applicable individually unlike regulations which are in a community. Regulations are applied by all Union Members regardless of international borders which means all members must implement them correctly as stipulated by the EU. However, decisions are only implemented towards the achievement of a specific goal which makes them directed to a specific or addresses a specific situation for the implementation to take place (Enhesa, 2014). While decisions are induvial applicable and binding in its entirety which entails, the directive law is directly applicable with a binding that sets out the objective to be attained.
The major difference between regulations and directives is that in regulations, the law enters into force on the set day or the date stipulated in all member states while for directives, the stipulated results must be achieved but the members state have the will to choose freely how to make changes in their laws in order to implement directives within the required time. The other difference between EU directives and regulation is that in directives, the process for its implementation is set by the Member State while regulation implementation process is set by the EU (EU Monitor, 2019). The major similarity between the three forms of EU law is that they are all binding within the Member States. Both directives and regulations are applicable to all Members States and the stipulated result must be achieved in the end. Both regulations and decisions became binding automatically upon the date they enter into force throughout the Member States.
The second task in this section is to examine some of the constitutional issues EU law creates for the UK’s political and legal systems. With the EU regulations and directives two major EU laws that are widely implemented in the EU Member States, the tension has grown among the UK’s nations on how the major legally directives that the two laws hold are to in force as the country undergoes the Brexit process. The political and legal issues that UK’s is experiencing with the EU law include the role of devolved legislatures which incorporate devolution Acts that directly refer to the EU law. Brexit means that the devolution Acts would have to be amended by the UK parliament to avoid the creation of a limit around implementation legislatures (Arabella, 2016, 11). For instance, the EU ministers have the power to implement directives of EU locally; if the devolution Acts does not be amended it will mean that those EU ministers within the UK will still have the power to implement the EU directives locally.
The other issue that becomes of concern about the devolved power is that the UK Government cannot invite the parliament to amend the devolved matters according to the Sewel Convention unless the consent of the relevant devolved legislature is obtained. The competence of devolved legislation is stipulated by the EU law creating an issue of implementation responsibilities when the Brexit is completed (Arabella, 2016, 19). Article 50 of the EU treaty allows a member to live the Union according to their own constitutional requires. However, the left has to be negotiated and be done either through withdrawal agreement or not after two years prior to the nation notifying the European Council of its withdrawal intention. In the process that UK withdraws from the EU without a withdrawal agreement, it will mean that individuals enjoying the acquired rights stipulated under the EU law would have to lose them. The individuals’ may even lose their international acquired rights which will be a blow to them and their business operations.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the paper has provided three main forms of EU law which include regulations, directives, and decisions. The main similarity between the three forms of EU law is that they are all binding in all EU Member States. The three forms, however, differ in their implementation processes. The paper also has examined the legal and political issues created by the EU law in the UK specifically within the content of Brexit with major issues being devolved legislation and acquired rights.
References
Arabella, P., Miller, V., Smith, B., & Webb, D., 2016. Brexit: Some Legal and Constitutional Issues and Alternatives to EU Membership. House of Commons Library. Available at https://brexit.hypotheses.org/files/2017/01/Legal-and-constitutional-issues.pdf. [Assessed on 14 May 2019.]
Borchardt, K., 2010. The ABC of European Union law. European Union. Available at https://euicc-ks.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/abc_eng.pdf. [Assessed on 14 May 2019.]
Enhesa, 2014. EU Directive vs EU Regulation: What’s The Difference? Enhesa. Available at https://www.enhesa.com/blog/eu-directive-vs-eu-regulation-whats-difference. [Assessed on 14 May 2019.]
EU Monitor, 2019. Legal instruments. Available at https://www.eumonitor.eu/9353000/1/j9vvik7m1c3gyxp/vh75mdhkg4s0. [Assessed on 14 May 2019.]
Telegraph Media Group Limited, 2019. EU legislation explained. Available at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/6198356/EU-legislation-explained.html. . [Assessed on 14 May 2019.]
