Impact of EU membership on UK Law - Essay Example

European Union was formed to create an environment where all European nations could benefit from efficient use of factors of production to provide cost effective products and services for the European people.This entails all member nations to agree to common economic policies. This has far reaching effect not only on the economic policy making of the member countries but also on their political and legal systems. Common policy implementation requires great political integration of the various member states.

For the above stated purpose, a European Community was formed which consisted of council of ministers and a setup of various institutions like European Parliament, The Council of European Union, European Commission, the Court of Justice and so on (actrav.itcilo.org). Among the various institutes, the European Commission plays the most important role in the process of policy making. Its main function includes the introduction or origination of the various legislations. It then acts as a “guardian of Treaties” as well as executes and manages the various Union policies along with those of “international trade relations” (actrav.itcilo.org).

Thus, through the various institutes, the EC ensures that various legislations are created and followed throughout the European Union community. This has implications for the member states as the laws passed by the EU are binding on all the member countries (blurtit.com).. in were to consent to a particular treaty of the EU in conjunction with the other member states, the MPs of Britain will have no powers to overthrow it. The European Court has powers to overrule any motion passed by the British parliament to defeat any such treaty.

The only way UK could then implement the motion of the British parliamentarians is to withdraw its membership from the EU. How much has been the influence of the EU membership on the laws of UK can be adjudged by looking at the number of legislations or directives that have been passed on account of EU regulations as compared to those initiated locally. It has been estimated that 50% of the UK laws are EU-originated (Johnston 2009). The research also showed that of the 2000 regulatory proposals studied, 72% of the cost of regulations was on account of EU regulations (Johnston 2009).

The major worrisome feature of this is that the country is being run more by EU laws than by the local ones and topping on this is the fact that these laws are not very well scrutinized and cannot be easily changed by the elected representatives of the British parliament. Delegated legislation brings another aspect into the UK law scene. Delegated legislation means that the government can make finer changes to a law without having to go through the parliamentary process (parliament.uk). The major advantages of this legislation are that it saves the time of the parliament especially where the MPs do not have specific technical knowledge about the field of the Act, it allows quick decision making especially in situations of national security or health and helps in enabling small changes (sixthformlaw.info). However, the major disadvantages lie in the fact that it is usually passed by the civil servants who are not the elected