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About LinkBacksGerard Hogan SC blows a hole out of No sides legal arguments RTÉ.ie Media Player: This Week 13 September 2009
Gerard Hogan SC blows a hole out of No sides legal arguments RTÉ.ie Media Player: This Week 13 September 2009
He is wrong. He claimed we have Protocols. However, we don't. We only have a promise of Protocols inserted into a future Accession treaty. I regarded his claims as biased. He has already been reported as having expressed pro-Lisbon views in recent months arguing that our reputation has been damaged by voting no. Well if protecting our democracy and standing up for the disenfranchised masses of Europe and those denied respect for their no votes in France and Holland harms our 'reputation' with the political-elites, then I say it;s a price worth paying to maintain our remaining independence. I reject out of hand any attempt to link the recession with our no vote. They are not linked. What happened here was what David McWilliams predicted in a TV series where he warned that since 2001, our economy was dangerously dependent on construction, and that disaster would result. He was right. That is what has made our recession worse than most Western countries apart from Spain, which voted yes but has 18% unemployment - a number which has doubled since the yes vote in 2005. The Dutch and the French financial-institutions have not been punished by the ECB for their no votes. So people of Ireland - stand up to tbe bullying by the elites who want to sell out our hardwon independence. Do not surrender longterm sovereignty because of fear of a recession that will pass irrespective of how we vote.
In any case, he failed to address my main concern about the Charter, namely the asylum-related provisions and the possible implications of Article 15.1 in terms of forcing Ireland to allow asylum seekers to work, even while the UK has an optout protocol.
Last edited by FutureTaoiseach; 14th September 2009 at 07:09 AM.
How can you say he is wrong when you've spent the last 18 months quoting him including the use of a quote from him as your signatureOriginally Posted by FutureTaoiseach
He said we have a Protocol. That is simply not true. We have the promise of a Protocol to be added to a future Accession Treaty. That is a fact. Part of the script of the yes camp in recent times - especially from Cowen - has been to claim "we have protocols". This is a cynical misrepresentation. We have promises of protocols to be inserted into a future treaty at an unspecified future date. Not good enough. They are not part of the Lisbon Treaty and therefore are not legally binding until inserted into an EU treaty. Paul Anthony McDermott referred to the guarantees as "worthless" some months ago on Q+A, pointing out that if you were suring in the ECJ the court would want to know what part of the treaties you were suing on. But we don't have Protocols in the Treaties. This has been in the public domain for months. They will not be added to Lisbon. We are promised their inclusion in an Accession treaty. For the yes camp to now claim 'we have protocols' is a fundamentally disingenuous presentation of the situation.
What we have is a political-promise - an especially debased currency where FF is concerned - not least from Michael ('end waiting lists in two years') Martin and Dick ("No second referendum") Roche.
B0ll0x does he 'blow a hole' out of anything. His opinions are just that, opinions. His entire contribution is shot through with the qualifiers 'I don't believe', 'in my view' and 'I can't see'. These are his carefully chosen escape clauses for that inevitable time in the future, if the Treaty is passed, when his claims are proved wrong. He nowhere cites specific provisions to support those views and opinions and indeed admits that when it comes to workers rights that the whole issue will be dependent on judicial interpretation. This is EXACTLY what the No campaign have been saying. Judicial interpretation has been, as a matter of policy, hardening in favour of employers in recent years. Morever, the Treaty enshrines in EU law the rulings in four worker unfriendly cases for good measure. Not one person on the Yes side has ever been able to deal with this issue because they dare not. In fact the Yes campaign are terrified of any argument based on the actual wording of the treaty because they know they are in treacherous waters there.
Hogan's claim that these protocols are legally binding is disgraceful. Firstly, they are not even protocols, the are mere declarations and there is no onus on the EU to do anything further with them at all. As an EU lawyer he knows all this fine well. They are a pantomime of meaningless nonsense whose purpose is to make it seem the government have secured concessions to assuage No voters concerns. They are a pack of lies in other words.
so how are you right while every leading academic and researcher in the area is suddenly wrong
Academics and researchers are not gods. They are very prone to bias, especially when politics are involved.
so the No side will stop quoting from a german law professor
Get outta dat ye troll. There as many if not more leading legal experts who are as vehemently opposed to the Treaty as not. Joe Noonan for instance would be one of them.
Why are there two threads on this?
this is Joe Noonan who told people prior to the 1992 referendum on maastricht that they were voting for conscription to a european army - he knows sweet ******************** all about eu law. And there are 2 threads cos they are two different pieces if youd care to actually read both
