Esmond Birine: The role of the European Court in Northern Ireland is an important matter, not just a legal technicality
The role of the ECJ is not a sort of legalistic Jarndyce versus Jarndyce (the name of an interminable legal case which runs through Dickens’ novel Bleak House), which the UK government (Lord Frost) has now thrown into the negotiations.
If the ECJ retains ultimate say so as to whether the UK government/NI is appropriately implementing single market EU competition law then that gives the EU the privileged position of being judge in its own case.
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Hide AdIt is often argued that natural justice requires that ‘no one is judge in his own cause’ (‘nemo judex in causa sua’).
And EU law and how it is implemented (and the hence the question of whether policy and practice in NI has to be identical to that in the EU27 or could it be deemed ‘equivalent’, and linked to all of that, who judges all of that) has very practical implications for NI economy and society.
To take one example, which is topical given the current deliberations of the Fiscal Commission, tax devolution. EU market law requires that any reduction in level of taxation in a region requires a reduction in the cash transfer from the national exchequer to that a region equivalent to the reduction in revenue collected.
This was spelt out in the Azores Judgement at the ECJ. So, it was an ECJ ruling which implied that if the Stormont executive had chosen to reduce corporation tax in Northern Ireland there would be a corresponding (considerable) reduction in the block grant to NI. Under the protocol (as is) the Azores ruling still applies to NI. A similar principle is likely to apply to any other future proposals for tax reduction in NI.
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Hide AdIt might be argued that HM Treasury would take the view, in any case, that if a tax rate is cut in NI compared to the UK average then it is only fair that the executive takes a hit to the block grant. Perhaps so but the point is that under the protocol the UK government has no scope to show any generosity to NI.
• Dr Esmond Birnie is senior economist at Ulster University Business School
Other articles by Esmond Birinie below and beneath that information on how to subscribe to the News Letter:
• Esmond Birnie Aug 21: We cannot assume that North-South trade offsets the problems of the protocol
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Hide Ad• Esmond Birnie Aug 12: The Irish Sea border is costing Northern Ireland £850m a year
• Ruth Dudley Edwards Oct 12: SF is the driving force in the Irish demonisation of Israel
• Owen Polley Oct 11: Stormont has repeatedly let down health workers by ducking reform
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Hide Ad• Henry McDonald Oct 9: Colm Toibin spurns misty-eyed guff about a ‘New Ireland’
• Ben Lowry Oct 9: Echoes of 2019, as Boris Johnson fails to proclaim his unionism in speech
• Peter Robinson Oct 1: Doug Beattie should say to where he wants UUP voters to transfer
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