The European Court of Justice, the EU’s highest court, has recently delivered a judgment readily adopted as fuel for the Leave Campaign.
As already blogged by Gherson yesterday, the Judges in Luxembourg ruled in the case of Selina Affum, that migrants caught sneaking into the UK couldn’t be jailed.
In this case, the detention by the French of a Ghanaian woman who tried to enter the UK by travelling on the Channel Tunnel with someone else’s passport was ruled unlawful.
The Judgment concluded that such detention was a breach of the EU “Return Directive” (Directive 2008/115/EC), which states that illegal migrants seeking to enter the territory of a member state or cross an internal border of the Schengen area, must be invited to return home voluntarily first, and given up to a month to do so.
The Judgment has attracted public criticism by those that advocate leaving the EU, adding fuel to the Leave Campaign. It has been pointed out that the application of such Directive to illegal migrants seeking to enter the UK will force the UK to obey rules applicable to and adopted by the Schengen area – despite the fact that the UK is not a member of the passport-free zone – illustrating yet further devolution of UK powers to the EU.
Dominic Raab, the Justice Minister, said: “These rulings by the European Court of Justice threaten the integrity of our borders, and create serious risks for our security. It’s also a stark illustration of our loss of proper democratic control to the EU over a sensitive area of policy….The ruling increases the risk that illegal immigrants will be able to enter the UK, because it weakens the ability of other EU governments to put in place proper checks.”
Steven Woolfe, a Ukip MEP, said: “This Judgment blows a hole in Cameron’s argument that the EU makes us more secure. It is insanity to leave it up to the migrants whether they should leave promptly or not.”