Mr Wieland sacrifices the Parliament’s broader interests
http://acta.ffii.org/?p=1216
with links

March 27, 2012
By Ante

Rainer Wieland, Vice President of the European Parliament, confirmed the 
decision taken earlier by the Secretary General not to release the legal 
service’s opinion on ACTA (pdf). According to the Vice President, the EU is 
now under certain obligations concerning due and successful ratification of 
ACTA. Furthermore, the letter, dated 14 March 2012, states that Legal Affairs 
Committee coordinators were not competent to release the opinion.

A day earlier, on 13 March, Legal Affairs Chair Mr Lehne stated in a letter 
(pdf) to the Chair of the Conference of Chairs that the Legal Affairs Committee 
"was merely applying the general rule, which is that there is an obligation to 
disclose the opinions of the legal service relating to a legislative process".

Mr Wieland:

"Moreover, it has to be underlined that the signing of ACTA by the Union 
in Tokyo on 26 January 2012 entails certain legal obligations for the Union 
vis-á-vis its contracting partners. Indeed, it follows from international law 
that once an international agreement has been signed, the contracting parties 
are by law expected to refrain from any action which would defeat the object 
and purpose of the agreement (Article 18 of Vienna Convention on the Law of 
the Treaties). Moreover, the signatories undertake to start the ratification 
process. Therefore, the Union is now under certain obligations concerning due 
and successful ratification of ACTA."

That seems a somewhat wild statement. Under art 18 VCLT "A State is obliged to 
refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: 
(a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the 
treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have 
made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty; (..)"

Since the Council signed ACTA, the Council can not stimulate counterfeiting, 
fair enough. But the Council can still decide ACTA is a bad idea and inform 
the negotiating partners. And the Parliament is fully free to give consent or 
not. There is no certain obligation concerning "successful ratification".

According to Mr Wieland, publication of legal opinions create a serious risk 
that the ratification procedure launched by the contracting partners of the EU 
will be jeopardised.

Really? In Parliament, there are two forces that want to keep the legal 
opinion secret: the legal service, which consistently overlooked known issues, 
and proponents of ACTA, like International Trade Committee Chair Mr Moreira.

Mr Wieland apparently agrees with these two limited interests, while the 
Parliament has a much bigger interest: ensure the biggest possible freedom to 
take decisions. But Mr Wieland rather invents a "certain obligation concerning 
due and successful ratification of ACTA". Mr Wieland sacrifices the Parliament’s 
broader interest for limited interests. He happily incapacitates the 
Parliament. Mr Wieland’s decision to use article 18 VCLT to keep the legal 
service’s opinions on ACTA secret is incomprehensible and detrimental for the 
Parliament.

Mr Wieland:

"As to- your allegation that the coordinators of the Legal Affairs 
committee had decided to disclose the legal opinion I have to inform you that 
contrary to your allegations, no decision exists to fully disclose document 
SJ-661/11 which has been formally adopted by any competent political body of 
the European Parliament.

Moreover, according to Article 192 of Parliaments Rules of Procedure, the 
coordinators can only decide in the case of explicit delegation by the 
Committee. In the absence of such a delegation, they may only adopt 
recommendations requiring formal ex-post approval which had not taken place in 
the matter under consideration. Indeed, the adopted minutes of the Legal 
Affairs Committee meeting of 19-20 December 2011 do not record any decision by 
delegation on the recommendation to which you refer; neither has any approval 
ex-post for a coordinators’ recommendation been referred back to the Committee 
members." 

But the decision was recorded… in the separate coordinators’ minutes. The 
secretariat sent these minutes to the Legal Affairs Committee Members. As far 
as we can know, no Committee Member objected against the decision.

And the next day the Legal Affairs Committee publicly discussed the opinion. 
Members welcomed the publication, no Member protested. The mood was cheerful, 
I was told.

It is disheartening to see our 500 million people parliament defend secrecy.

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