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Retained EU law: no need for speed?

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21 April 2023 / Richard Arthur
Issue: 8021 / Categories: Features , EU , Brexit
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The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill: Richard Arthur warns against the headlong rush to abandon EU law
  • The Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill provides for the automatic sunsetting of almost all EU-derived law from 31 December 2023.
  • It provides ministers with wide-ranging powers to specify and restate EU-derived laws to be preserved, and courts and tribunals with increased opportunities to depart from previous EU law.
  • In the words of one parliamentary committee, it will entail a ‘deluge of subordinate legislation’ in the space of less than 12 months.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (EU(W)A 2018) preserved existing EU-derived law applicable in the UK before exit day as ‘retained EU law’. It also provided a set of rules to govern an interim period following the UK’s departure from the EU so as to enable an orderly disentangling of domestic law from EU law.

Those rules included the continued supremacy of EU law in relation to laws passed before exit date, the continued

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