The European Union continues to have a "democratic deficit" despite reforms over recent years, Mr Justice Barrington of the Supreme Court has said. At the weekend inaugural conference of the Irish European Law Forum, he said the way to overcome this deficit was to increase the powers of the European Parliament. But he emphasised such questions were for politicians, not for "lawyers or judges". "The European Community is undoubtedly a community governed by law, but there has been a significant loss of sovereignty," he said.
There had been a "significant loss in democratic control" because power in the community "is no longer controlled at the level at which it is exercised".
Mr Justice Barrington is a former Judge of the European Court of First Instance.
The primacy of European law, he said, meant that "large portions of the Constitution have been bypassed". Several articles of the Constitution were overridden "not only by provisions of the treaties, but by regulations, directives and decisions of the various European institutions".
But despite this loss of sovereignty, said Mr Justice Barrington, the State had "greater freedom of economic action and greater political influence than it had as a formally sovereign nation State".
However, there was a "lurking nightmare" in one part of European community law. When the President refers a Bill to the Supreme Court, a decision on its constitutionality must be made in not more than 60 days. During this process one of the parties involved can demand a reference to the European Court of Justice, under Article 177 of the Treaty of Rome.
This often takes up to a year and a half to adjudicate upon, so this would cause great problems for the Supreme Court, he said.
He added that this problem might arise in the very near future with "major legal consequences".
Dr John Temple Lang, a director of the Competition Directorate General of the European Commission, warned that an "astonishing" situation could arise as a result of last year's McKenna judgment by the Supreme Court.
He said this judgment might mean that if a referendum on a political solution to the Northern Ireland problem was put to the people, the Government might have to fund those groups opposed to the solution proposed.
This would be the "remnants of the IRA and the most hard line of unionists".
If the Government sponsored and promoted a `Yes' campaign during the referendum it would be forced, under the McKenna judgment, to give equal prominence to a `No' campaign, he said.
One way to prevent this happening was for the Dail to introduce legislation to "roll back" the McKenna judgment, which "had profoundly unsatisfactory ramifications".