ECJ loss rate doesn't show injustice | Stop Brexit - Apr. 2016 |

The UK loses 75 per cent of cases at the European Court of Justice (ECJ), says Vote Leave. For the Sun, this is an "injustice for Britain". "Proof of meddling", says the Daily Express.  And, says Vote Leave, the problem is getting worse, as "the rate at which the UK has been defeated has also been increasing".

"In 40 years, we've lost three-quarters of cases at the Luxembourg Court, when we've tried to resist these incursions. They affect everything from the price of beer to the cost of home insulation, and undermine basic principle of our democracy - that the British people can hold to account those who write the laws of the land."

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Vote Leave bases its claims on the 131 ECJ cases involving the UK since we joined the EU. We lost 101, so Vote Leave announces our "failure rate" as 77.1 per cent, rounded down to 75. The campaign adds that the number of failures per year is increasing: in the ten years to 2005, the UK lost 27 cases; in the subsequent decade, it lost 42. Finally, Vote Leave asserts that the share of cases lost is rising. Since 2010, the UK has lost 80 per cent.

The last claim is most easily dispensed with. A rise in the share of cases lost from 77 per cent to 80 per cent is insignificant, and disappears depending on the period chosen. As to the trend in absolute numbers, Vote Leave is right that the UK is losing more cases each year. But we are winning more as well.

That still leaves the complaint that the UK has lost over three-quarters of all cases, an apparently troubling proportion. But it is important to understand that most cases - 91 of the 131 - involve the Commission taking the UK to court for failure to implement EU law. The Commission won't bring such cases unless its lawyers reckon it will win. So it should come as no surprise that the Commission won 77 out of the 91 cases that it brought against the UK, or 84.6 per cent. The UK fared somewhat better in the remaining 40 cases, losing 24, or 60 per cent. Taking both types of case together, Britain does not seem to do particularly badly compared to other EU countries. Of the 50 most recent cases involving France, for example, the French lost 90 per cent.

○ Human Rights and the European Arrest Warrant (EAW): Has the ECJ turned from poacher to gamekeeper?

On an aside, the cosy relationship of the Tories with media mogul Rupert Murdoch ...

○ Michael Gove and Rupert Murdoch'r relationship should be investigated | The Independent - Oct. 2016 |
○ Tories refuse to deny Rupert Murdoch role in Michael Gove's cabinet return | The Guardian - July 18, 2017 |
○ How the Nobel Prize-winning economist James M. Buchanan shaped today's antigovernment politics | The Atlantic |

'Sapere aude'