Euro courts will prevail unless Britain quits, warns top lawyer

DAVID Cameron’s attempt to make Parliament sovereign over EU judges was dismissed yesterday by a former senior law officer at the European Court of Justice.

British lawyer Sir Francis Jacobs, QC, a former advocate general at the court – which rules on disputes over European Union law – said the court would ‘always prevail’.

The only way to ensure UK law was paramount would be to leave the EU, he added.

This week Mr Cameron said he was seeking a law to ‘assert the sovereignty of this House of Commons’ over Brussels.

But Sir Francis, who was advocate general at the court from 1988 to 200 , said EU law will always take precedence as long as Britain stays in the 28-state bloc.

On Radio 4’s Today programme he was asked if EU law would remain sovereign under Mr Cameron’s proposals. He said: ‘The answer is clearly yes. If the European Union is to work at all then EU law has to prevail over the law over the member states.

‘If the 28 member states each take a different view of what EU law should mean then it would be impossible for the EU to function, so it does require that European law should be recognised as prevailing over national law.’

Downing Street said proposals for how UK courts could uphold British sovereignty will be introduced ‘in the coming weeks’. They could involve asking the UK Supreme Court to act as a ‘constitutional longstop’ if the European Court of Justice passes laws the UK Parliament does not like. The court could then be asked to think again.