Scalia Takes His Frank Views to Australia, Criticizes EU for Offering ‘Reduced Democracy'
Justice Antonin Scalia criticized the European Union and its Court of Human Rights as undemocratic in an appearance in Australia on Wednesday.
Scalia’s “famous self-confidence and power to control a debate” were evident during his speech and a question-and-answer period, the Australian reports. According to the report, Scalia criticized the EU as “the most obvious example of how democratic choice can produce reduced democracy.”
Scalia said the EU has an elected parliament, “but as a practical matter its edicts are determined by an unelected commission, and interpreted and enforced by an unelected court. In this system … even the national constitutions of member states can be overwritten by bureaucratic directors resting on nothing more than the say-so of officials in Brussels.”
He also said the European Court of Human Rights lacked democratic authority, and called its power to issue binding rulings “a prescription for the elimination of democracy.”
Scalia was speaking at an advocacy conference in Adelaide, according to News.Com.AU.
