Legislating for UK Withdrawal from the EU

Stuart C McDonald Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Davis]

It will depend on what the policy decision is, but I think that it is quite likely to come to Parliament.

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

How can trade and security co-operation be maximised if UK courts are interpreting parallel legal provisions in a completely different way from the European Court of Justice? Surely UK courts will have to continue to consider ECJ case law as it develops after Brexit, and not just as it exists at the point of Brexit, as the Secretary of State sought to suggest in his statement.

[Mr Davis]

No, not at all. The whole point of this is to bring those laws back within the control of Parliament and our own courts, and our courts will continue to interpret them as they see fit. They may continue to obey precedent, or they may decide to change it. That will be a matter for them, and, ditto, it will be a matter for the House of Commons to decide whether it wants to change such matters as well. Let me add, as an aside, that the Supreme Court often looks at what is done by other courts around the world—not just the European Court of Justice but, for instance, the American courts—in order to make its decisions.