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Metaconstitutionalising Secession: The Reference and Scotland (In Europe)

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The Canadian Contribution to a Comparative Law of Secession

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Abstract

This chapter considers the influence of the Reference Re Secession of Quebec on the debate preceding and surrounding the Scottish independence referendum of 2014. It argues that the Reference influenced the framing of the putative Scottish secession in the European legal imagination on three levels. Firstly, the Canadian Supreme Court’s treatment of the right to external self-determination informed the content of a normative conception of the “principle of constitutional tolerance” which Weiler identified as generating an imperative to preclude a Scottish successor state from membership of the Union. Secondly, the Supreme Court’s answer to Question 1 of the Reference had a methodological influence on those, like Douglas-Scott, who sought to formulate a European legal response to a would-be Scottish “yes” vote in the light an approach that would make the “vital unstated assumptions” of the European project legally cognisable by privileging the importance of the values on which the Union is premised above the conferral of discrete competences. A third influence is also put forward: the Reference presents a way of resolving the well-rehearsed procedural dilemma between Articles 48 and 49 of the Treaty on European Union, by suggesting a turn to the associative commitments in which those two amending powers are each nested. While any proposal to constitutionalise the question of Scottish independence seems to defy the nature of the European Union, the Reference has had a decisive influence on attempts to apprehend that prospective secession in the terms of the principles that unite the Member State and Union legal orders.

This chapter presents the views of the author alone and not those of the Council or its Legal Service.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, [1998] 8 S.C.R. 217.

  2. 2.

    Agreement between the UK Government and the Scottish Government on a referendum on independence for Scotland (2012).

  3. 3.

    Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013 No. 242; the Scottish Independence Referendum (Franchise) Act 2013, 2013 asp 13; Scottish Independence Referendum Act 2013, 2013 asp 14.

  4. 4.

    See, in this connection: Scottish Parliament , Motion S5M-04710, 28 March 2017.

  5. 5.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 85.

  6. 6.

    Reference Re Manitoba Language Rights [1985] 1 S.C.R. 721, 745.

  7. 7.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 49.

  8. 8.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 136.

  9. 9.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 126.

  10. 10.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 49.

  11. 11.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 84.

  12. 12.

    On this debate see Monahan (1995) and Webber (1997).

  13. 13.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 84.

  14. 14.

    Case 45/86, Commission v. Council (‘GSP’), ECLI:EU:C:1987:163, paragraph 11.

  15. 15.

    Case C-300/89, Commission v. Council (‘Titanium Dioxide’), ECLI:EU:C:1991:244, paragraph 10.

  16. 16.

    Opinion 2/00, ECLI:EU:C:2001:664, paragraph 5.

  17. 17.

    Opinion of Advocate General Kokott in Case C-13/07, Commission v. Council (‘Vietnam WTO Accession’), ECLI:EU:C:2009:190, paragraph 105.

  18. 18.

    Case C-338/01, Commission v. Council (‘European Agricultural Guidance and Guarantee Fund’), ECLI:EU:C:2004:253, paragraph 54.

  19. 19.

    Case T-584/93, Olivier Roujansky v. Council, ECLI:EU:T:1994:87, paragraph 15; Case C-253/94 P, Olivier Roujansky v. Council, ECLI:EU:C:1995:4, paragraph 11; Case T-113/96, Edouard Dubois et Fils SA v. Council and Commission, ECLI:EU:T:1998:11, paragraph 47; C-95/98 P, Edouard Dubois et Fils SA v. Council and Commission, ECLI:EU:C:1999:373, paragraph 21.

  20. 20.

    The Member States are not one of the listed institutions in Article 13(1) TEU. See Case C-253/94 P, Olivier Roujansky v. Council, ibid for this analysis as regards ex Article 4 TEU (Maastricht).

  21. 21.

    Joined Cases 31/86 and 35/86, Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa) and CPC España v. Council, ECLI:EU:C:1988:211, paragraph 17; Case C-572/15, F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG v. Accord Healthcare OÜ ECLI:EU:C:2016:739, paragraph 30.

  22. 22.

    Case C-204/01, Tilmann Klett v. Bundesministerin für Bildung, Wissenschaft und Kultur, ECLI:EU:C:2002:634, paragraphs 38 and 39.

  23. 23.

    Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa), paragraphs 21 and 22.

  24. 24.

    F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, paragraph 31.

  25. 25.

    Case C-313/89, Commission v. Spain, ECLI:EU:C:1991:415, paragraph 10.

  26. 26.

    Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa), paragraph 17; F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, paragraph 31.

  27. 27.

    F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, paragraph 31; See likewise on the “alleged arbitrary difference of regime”: Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa).

  28. 28.

    Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa), paragraph 12; Opinion of Advocate General Lenz in Levantina Agrícola Industrial SA (Laisa), ibid., paragraph 20; Case C-445/00, Austria v. Council, ECLI:EU:C:2003:445, paragraph 62.

  29. 29.

    Opinion 2/94, ECLI:EU:C:1996:140, paragraph 35; Case 43/75, Gabrielle Defrenne v. Société anonyme belge de navigation aérienne Sabena, ECLI:EU:C:1976:56, paragraph 58.

  30. 30.

    Case C-95/97, Région wallonne v. Commission, ECLI:EU:C:1997:184, paragraph 6.

  31. 31.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 88.

  32. 32.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 49.

  33. 33.

    Reference Re Secession of Quebec, paragraph 51.

  34. 34.

    Joined Cases C-413/04 and C-414/04, Parliament v. Council, ECLI:EU:C:2006:742, paragraph 68.

  35. 35.

    Opinion 2/13, ECLI:EU:C:2014:2454.

  36. 36.

    Opinion 2/13, paragraph 168.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Legal Service, Council of the European Union, Brussels, Belgium

    Alastair MacIver

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  1. Alastair MacIver
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Correspondence to Alastair MacIver .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Comparative Public Law, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

    Giacomo Delledonne

  2. Comparative Public Law, Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy

    Giuseppe Martinico

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MacIver, A. (2019). Metaconstitutionalising Secession: The Reference and Scotland (In Europe). In: Delledonne, G., Martinico, G. (eds) The Canadian Contribution to a Comparative Law of Secession. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03469-6_6

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