It is almost next to impossible for anyone to engage in a meaningful discussion or debate about issues of governance and development devoid of any discussion about how law affects social and economic development. The Law Forum at KDI School is committed to uphold integrity in the legal profession, good governance, promotion of the administration of justice, equity, and the rule of law so as to achieve socio-economic development around the world.
The main objective of the Forum is to bring together legal practitioners in KDI School so as to create a lifelong network of lawyers with development experience that can always reach out to each other even after graduating from the School. The Forum provides an avenue for lawyers and other interested parties in KDI School to exchange ideas, analyse or debate issues of interest and thus stay engaged with the legal profession. It is also committed to assist and advise KDI School community on all matters touching, ancillary or incidental to law and development.To celebrate its inauguration, the Law Forum contributes the following article to The Globe:

“Brexit: UK and EU’s legal rocky relationship” by Daniel ADYERA (2016 MPP, Uganda)
Over the past forty four years, the EU has had tremendous effect on the lives of British nationals in a myriad of ways, from trade deals, legal functions, human rights, and immigration issues among others. The recent referendum had its own repercussion on the UK like the record fall in the value of the British Pound Sterling in thirty years, uncertainty looming over the residential status of European citizens in the UK and vice versa. However, let’s focus on something rather different. Let’s take a brief look at the UK/EU legal relationship, something that the media attention has been aloof from.
 The UK has had its long standing history and tradition of Parliamentary sovereignty, a constitutional doctrine that lies at the heart of the British constitutional and legal frame work, politics and governance. Parliamentary Sovereignty was first coined by a British constitutional legal scholar A.V Dicey in three prongs that state:

• No UK Parliament may be bound by a predecessor nor be bound by a successor;
• That the UK Parliament is the supreme law making body and has unlimited law making powers on any subject matter; and
• No person or body including a court of law may challenge or question the validity of a law passed by the UK Parliament.

Sir Leslie Stephens (1882) in an attempt to explain the unlimited powers of the UK Parliament used an extreme example to illustrate this point. He said that Parliament has “powers to legislate to put blue-eyed babies to death”. Another example to illustrate this principle was propounded by Sir Ivor Jennings who stated that Parliament can legally “make a man into a woman”. All these examples are of course theoretical though pinpointing the supreme and unchallenged law making turf that the UK Parliament enjoyed or will soon enjoy yet again.
It is with the third strand that has caused a rivalry between the UK and the EU, a challenge that did not settle well with traditional Britons who were later to be labelled “Eurosceptics” because of their fear of the erosion of the British traditional domestic values and practices by the EU.
But how and when the UK joined the EU? While some countries like South Africa have a monism approach to international law, UK has a dualist approach, meaning that no international law becomes part of its domestic law without being legislated upon by the UK Parliament to take effect in its jurisdiction as part of their municipal law. After a series of thoughts and debates as whether to join the EU (then known as the ECC) or not, the UK made its first application to join the EU in July 1961 but finally joined in 1973 after UK parliament passing the European Communities Act 1972 (ECA).
Whether the British government balanced the effects of this move against the smooth operation of their legal system bearing in mind UK’s Parliamentary supreme law making powers is a question to ponder on because  the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) had already set a precedent in the German case Internationale Handelsgesellschaft mbH v Einfuhr- und Vorratsstelle für Getreide und Futtermittel (1970) concerning the conflict between the national legal system (law) and EU law where the CJEU held that the validity of EU law cannot be challenged on grounds of national laws. This case reiterated CJEU’s earlier decision in the case Van Gend en Loos (1963) where it clearly held that “Community (EU) law created a new legal order in international law”. The above cases and many others, establish EU legal supremacy over national law, meaning that EU states have “limited their sovereign rights albeit in limited field”.
While enacting the ECA, the UK Parliament seemed to have respected EU supremacy over its own national laws under s.2 which provides that “Community law shall have direct applicability in the United Kingdom”. The effect of this section is that EU law shall be part of UK law without any need of the UK Parliament legislating upon it thereby making EU a supreme law-making authority over the UK Parliament. Here is where the legal dilemma emanates for those entrusted to interpret the laws, the Judges.
Traditional, UK judges have adhered to and cherished the long standing tradition of Parliamentary sovereignty as was well expounded by Dicey. One may simply claim that this should not be a challenge for the judges since it is the same Parliament that enacted the Act and it is natural that they should respect Parliament’s wishes because one body including judges can challenge an Act of Parliament. But this was not so in practice. The Judges continued to protect UK laws even with direct challenge and confrontation with EU law. A classic case is the R (Factortame Ltd) v Secretary of State for Transport (1991), a case that involved conflict between UK’s Merchant Shipping Act 1988 (MSA) and an EU Directive that allowed for free access of fishing waters for all EU citizens. Here a Spanish ship was required to have a license before fishing in UK waters something that the fishermen claimed violated their rights under EU law. In a series of court sessions and appeal stages, English judges could be seen trying to uphold UK law over EU law, something they know they shouldn’t because of EU precedents in the above cases and better grounding still, the confines of s.2 of the ECA 1972. Lord Stoddart also once stated that “Huge areas of our national life are being decided not in this country by our government or Legislature but by a group of 27 countries of which UK is only one.” Such sentiments could only spell doom for EU law in the UK. The Factortame case ended in House of Lords with Lord Bridge conceding to EU supremacy by stating that it was the very UK Parliament that enacted the ECA 1972 that established EU supremacy over EU law, and for the first time in UK’s legislative history, an Act of Parliament was challenged there by setting the MSA (1988) aside in favour of the EU Directive.
Even with the referendum in favour of the Brexit, UK’s exit is not final because the legal process of exiting has not been adhered to yet. There are two processes to be done; one is by triggering of Article 50 TFEU and second by Parliament repealing the ECA, thereby annulling its effects in the UK. Before all this is done, Brexit referendum results are legally ineffective per se. But UK judges may seem to be a bit at ease now that they have less hustle and tussle of which laws to uphold.

By Maryanna Wangare KIBOI (2016 MDP, Kenya)