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Lars Lokke Rasmussen speaking at the UN headquarters in New York in September, 2010. AP Photo/Richard Drew
Lisbon
35 people sue Danish prime minister over Lisbon Treaty
Court permits group to sue Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen for constitutional breaches after the treaty was ratified without a referendum.
DENMARK’S SUPREME COURT HAS permitted a group to sue the prime minister for allowing the parliament to adopt the Lisbon Treaty without a referendum.
Thirty-five people are taking the action on the basis that the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty breached the country’s constitution.
Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen said today that the case would not change his view on the issue, but was a matter of whether the plaintiffs were right in their claim, according to Denmark’s Ekstra Bladet.
In December 2007, then-prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said the country would not be voting on Lisbon, but it would instead by ratified by its MPs, the BBC reported. He said: “When sovereignty is relinquished, a referendum is needed. When no sovereignty is relinquished, parliament will ratify the text.”
Ireland was the only EU member to hold a referendum (or two, as it turned out) before ratifying the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.
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