Talk:European Communities Act 1972 (UK)

Question

How did the European Communities act 1972 impact upon the UK legal system? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.64.87.123 (talk) 16:03, 31 March 2019 (UTC)

Leaving the EU

Although the repeal of the Act would make the European Communities/Union Treaties unenforceable in United Kingdom law, the United Kingdom as a state would still be bound by its treaty obligations to the European Union; because the act of ratification of those treaties is very much seperate from the passage of this act. Rahowell (talk) 21:26, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I have added an {{or}} flag to the sentence as it looks like original research. Do you have a source to support your view about the effect of repeal? For the record, the previous sentence was also unsourced and was potentially original research. Road Wizard (talk) 22:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I've removed the statement again. Please don't reference books that don't support the statement or class as definitive proof, I didn't enjoy having to go out and find the book in order to repeal a source when I should be doing that to add sources! Again, until a source that actually supports the statement is found, we'll stick to the facts. Also, try not to insult a me about facts concerning British constitutional law when you're creating information from thin air; Erroneous means there was error in the derision of a statement, whereas my comment is based upon reality and therefore not erroneous. So once again, British constitutional conventions do not bind any Government over and above the repealing of the Act of Parliament that makes the Treaty law. - Jimmi Hugh (talk) 18:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree: the statement was accurately sourced. You have failed to provide a source to support your interpretation. I am not about to violate the WP:3RR rule to remove your revision. This matter is as of now referred to dispute resolution. Lamberhurst (talk) 19:11, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Just my two pence here as a law/politics student - While I can't find any coverage of the idea that the treaty obligations would still be valid, it is silly to assume that it would be. The treaties becoming binding, according to the law of the UK, when the list of binding treaties covered by the 1972 Act is amended to include new ones - see the European Union (Amendment) Act 2008 for an example. EU law is only binding within the UK (and this includes the treaties) because it is covered by the 1972 Act, its amendments, and its statutory instruments. Since the repeal of the 1972 Act would invalidate all amending acts and all SIs, the idea that the UK would still be legally bound by the treaties is ridiculous. Ironholds (talk) 19:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify: there is no disagreement here over the fact that EU law obligations would no longer be enforceable in municipal law, the debate is whether they would still bind the UK in international law. Lamberhurst (talk) 19:25, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Right, got you. I would say not - note that nations have withdrawn from the EU before without any legal difficulties, although in slightly different situations. Really this is something the courts will have to deal with, but until they do or someone provides a source this is simply WP:OR and speculation, and should be removed. Ironholds (talk) 19:28, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I recall a clause in the 2003 draft treaty which would have set up a method for withdrawing from the EU, but that never went through. Ironholds (talk) 19:31, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Passage of the Act

Can we please include more information about the passage of this app as there is no information about how the act came into being all its progression through both Houses of Parliament given its such a constitutionally important piece of legislation. (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:2508:D7CA:1129:9615 (talk) 09:07, 24 July 2017 (UTC))

• Support I am in total agreement with this we need more information about its passage. (82.132.235.243 (talk) 15:23, 24 July 2017 (UTC))

Commencement date in infobox

Given that sources give 1 January 1973 as the date when the Act came into force, I think we need at least a citation and an explanatory footnote for the date 18 October 1972. The problem, as I understand it, is that the Act may have technically come into force the day after it received royal assent, but it "effectively" came into force with the treaty in January 1973. However, I couldn't find a source that explains this in citable form.

Some sources that give 1 January 1973 (and where that seems the sensible date to give in context):

• Turpin, Colin; Tomkins, Adam (2007). British Government and the Constitution: Text and Materials. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139465366. So Parliament exercised its sovereignty and the European Communities Act 1972 came into force on 1 January 1973
• BroadbentTurpin, Grame (2009). Public Law Directions. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199289721. In an ideal world, Parliament would have gone through every Act of Parliament that had been passed prior to 1 January 1973, the date on which the European Communities Act 1972 came into force, and amended it. Clearly, this was not possible ...

--Boson (talk) 10:22, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

Cheers for that, I first thought it was generally 1 January 1973 but then I saw that technicality that is actually 10 o'clock come into force the day after Rollason but I like to think that's actually funny came into force on January 1 1973. I hope you don't mind the changes I have made (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:AD40:1982:2F4D:2080 (talk) 16:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC))

I see you have changed the commencement date back to 1973, which I think is appropriate, since it is what the sources state. If you can give the source for the act technically coming into force on the next day, it might be worth adding a footnote. --Boson (talk) 21:48, 25 July 2017 (UTC)

I am not sure how to do a footnote but it is a good idea and I agree with that, forgive my jibbish in my reply yesterday that was the fault of Siri not hearing me properly. I am proposing to expanded further by going into more detail about the Act itself as currently it just explains the Act in a summery. I know as a whole the Act is very complicated and it's nature and I will only had details to which appreared in the original draft in 1972 not subsequent amendments, you are also very welcome to help by the way --Boson and particularly I have noticed there is no reference at all within the article regarding the UK's entry into the EC's customs union. (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:4D73:5991:A871:68C0 (talk) 14:10, 26 July 2017 (UTC))

The Customs Union was already an active function of the EEC by the time the UK joined - see European Economic Community#Aims and achievements. I'm not sure how you can separate that aspect out of the rest?

For footnotes (as opposed to references), see template:efn and template:Notelist. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 15:13, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

I was just referring to the UK's entry into the EC customs union which was achieved and enshrined in law through the passing of this act. Also the Act refers to the CAP to as well as European Regulations regarding Sugar which also do not apprear in the article. (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:4D73:5991:A871:68C0 (talk) 15:34, 26 July 2017 (UTC))

I have added an explanatory footnote to show one way of doing it that allows the footnote to contain references as well. Or, if you put any references here, I expect someone can do the formatting. I now see that John Maynard Friedman has explained it. Have you thought about creating an account so that you have your own stable talk page?--Boson (talk) 15:42, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

I do have a account I just haven't logged in it's User:MOTORAL1987 I will log in and you can send a message to talk page on there. (2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:4D73:5991:A871:68C0 (talk) 15:48, 26 July 2017 (UTC))

I have expanded the article last night to include more information about the Act itself. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 10:31, 27 July 2017 (UTC))

So what should we do about the commencement date? The current version has Commencement= "7 October 1972 (partly in force) 1 January 1973 (wholly in force)" However sure of that an editor may be, it is not as obvious as the sky is blue and is contradicted by sources, so we need a published source. Since it may be a matter of correct interpretation, an expert (published) secondary source would be preferable to a primary source. We have several reasonably reliable sources that give 1 January 1973 as the date that the act came into force, and that appears to be appropriate for most purposes, since it is the date that the relevant accession treaty came into force. On the other hand, we are not required to state things that are supported by sources when we have good reason to believe them to be untrue. Apart from anything else, the fact that the act itself states that specific sections come into force on 1 January 1973 strongly implies that that does not apply to all the provisions of the act (inclusio unius est exclusio alterius), but I'm not sure that we can explicitly state as fact something that relies on an editor's interpretation of the applicability of, say, the Interpretation Act 1978. But we still need a source for what we state explicitly. The date of the royal assent is given. The assumption that the act technically came into force on that date is of practically no encyclopedic relevance, and may mislead the reader (there is a reason that books give 1 January 1973). I would, therefore, suggest that we give the date of commencement as 1 January 1973, with a footnote stating that this is the date that the accession treaty came into force and the (explicit) date that certain provisions of the act came into force. That way we give the reader the relevant information but avoid making unqualified statements that cannot be sourced. If we found a reliable source that states explicitly that the other provisions all came into force on the date of royal assent, we could put that in the footnote, as well. So my suggestion is "Commencement: 1 January 1973

Notes

References

--Boson (talk) 13:50, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

New image request

At the time of the referendum, nine countries were members of the European Communities

Can we please have a new but separate version of this image please showing the UK in orange within the nine country European Communites? This can be used in articles relating to when we joined and the 1975 referendum. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 15:50, 26 July 2017 (UTC))

Binding on all legislation passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom?

The text has recently been changed to state that the Act "... is binding on all [my emphasis] legislation passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom...". This is unsourced and unexplained and would appear to rule out repeal of the Act by explicit legislation. I am inclined to revert the change, but perhaps someone has a suggestion (with references) that takes better account of parliamentary sovereignty, the supremacy of EU law, and the dualist approach.--Boson (talk) 23:16, 18 January 2018 (UTC)

Good Afternoon Boson I am sorry it’s taken me almost six years to reply to this comment, I am the user who put this text in. The reason I put it in is because when we became a member of the European Union in 1973 EU law became blinding on all legislation passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom because of the principle of EU Law having Primacy meaning if there was a UK Law which contradicted a EU Law then EU Law had to prevail over national law and override the piece of UK domestic legislation in question by having it dissapplied. This resulted in the Parliament of the United Kingdom only being able to pass domestic legislation in principle as long as it did not conflict with any EU laws so that UK law was always in regulatory alignment with all EU law during its time as a member of the EU. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:43, 15 November 2023 (UTC))

This is true.

Yes, the UK Parliament could have passed an act asserting its primacy but by doing so would have had to leave the EU. There is an ongoing controversy in Hungary where Orban is trying to argue otherwise. Aka cakeism. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:39, 16 November 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 16 August 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: consensus not to move the page to the proposed title at this time, per the discussion below. Dekimasuよ! 20:20, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

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European Communities Act 1972 (UK) → European Communities Act 1972 – Most people know the ECA1972 that everyone talks about comes from the UK so there is no need for the (UK) as it is never confused with the Irish version of the Act especially as the Irish version has the (Ireland) written into its article however unlike the UK version it is far less contentious and less known. 2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:C6B:C7D:1681:99A6 (talk) 07:07, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

This is a contested technical request (permalink). Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:09, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

• @2A02:C7F:5621:2A00:C6B:C7D:1681:99A6: But not me. I (and thus likely many others) had never heard of the ECA1972 or European Communities Act 1972 (UK) before I read this move request. And European Communities Act 1972 is a disambig page. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 11:12, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
• @MOTORAL1987: I however support the change as the (UK) is just simply out of place on a article of this nature as a disambig page for both articles is simply not needed, a simple link to the Irish article of the same name could be added to the main page at the top of the article which would not be a problem at all. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 13:58, 16 August 2018 (UTC))
• Oppose - I'm not familiar with any of these. From a short read of both articles it seems that neither one was adopted because of the other, making these both acts independent of one another. There might be possible stats that can prove a primary topic for one or the other, but those might be biased by population numbers. Regardless, I see no point in having a primary topic for this which just creates confusion and might create nationality bias. --Gonnym (talk) 10:49, 17 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose Nationality bias. Exactly the same position as I would take if someone wanted to give primacy to a US article over a UK one of the same name, or a Brazilian one over a Portuguese. Plus readers from the larger population need to know that they are not special. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:11, 18 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Precisely this point, using this very example, is addressed in a specific naming convention --Frans Fowler (talk) 03:32, 19 August 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose - Even though the UK article gets many more pageviews [1], the reasons above outweigh this. Dreamy Jazz 🎷 ^{talk to me | my contributions} 10:58, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Act status after Jan 31

What is the offical status of the Act going to be after Jan 31 then the UK has left the EU. The way I see it Legally the Act is repealed however the effect of the Act is being saved by a amendment the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 until December 2020 so after Friday do we class the Act itself as “repealed” or “effect saved” as this is seems to be a unique status for a UK act of Parliament to be repealed yet still have legal force. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 19:05, 27 January 2020 (UTC))

Not a clue. I wonder though whether the Statute Law Revision Act had the same issues that you might learn from without falling into WP:OR. That suggestion is made without confusing myself with any facts from the article, so obviously it must be true. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The issue is now resolved thanks to clarification on legislation.gov.uk. The Act is officially “Repealed” although it’s effects are saved via the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020 and I have changed the Acts status from “partially repealed” as it’s not in any form it’s official status to fully “repealed” as that is the official status. Please do NOT change this status. (MOTORAL1987 (talk) 14:15, 6 May 2020 (UTC))