Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister said we will be able to look after our own labour issues but in fact a corporation coming to a country in Europe will be allowed to use the investment court system to overrule domestic legislation. On 8 November the Minister said she had received advice to the effect that the investment court system model contained in CETA would effectively be a dispute resolution process which would not give rise to constitutional implications. She is probably aware that the Dublin-based senior counsel, Matthias Kelly, said the proposed investment court would "certainly infringe" upon the Constitution in two areas and possibly three. In his opinion the investment court system would possibly infringe on Article 15.2.1° which vests sole power to make law in the Oireachtas; it would certainly infringe on Article 34.1 which vests the power to dispense justice in the Irish domestic courts; and it would certainly infringe on Article 34.3.2° which makes the High Court and appellate courts above it the sole court in which a law may be questioned. If CETA really were a progressive agreement there would have been a lot more transparency in how it was negotiated.

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