123.This section does not alter the existing relationship between EU law and UK domestic law; in particular, the principle of the primacy of EU law. The principle of the primacy of EU law was established in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice before the accession of the United Kingdom to the European Communities. This is made clear, for example, in the judgment of the European Court of Justice in Costa v ENEL [1964] ECR 585 (6/64), and Parliament accepted this principle in approving the European Communities Act 1972. As Lord Bridge noted in his judgment in R v. Secretary of State for Transport, ex p. Factortame (No. 2) [1991] 1 All ER 70:
“Under the terms of the Act of 1972 it has always been clear that it was the duty of the United Kingdom court, when delivering final judgment, to override any rule of national law found to be in conflict with any directly enforceable rule of Community law. Similarly, when decisions of the European Court of Justice have exposed areas of United Kingdom statute law which failed to implement Council directives, Parliament has always loyally accepted the obligation to make appropriate and prompt amendments. Thus there is nothing in any way novel in according supremacy to rules of Community law in those areas to which they apply and to insist that, in the protection of rights under Community law, national courts must not be inhibited by rules of national law from granting interim relief in appropriate cases is no more than a logical recognition of that supremacy.”
