{"id":667455,"date":"2026-10-28T03:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T03:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667455\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T03:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T03:54:12","slug":"high-court-begins-hearing-sinn-fein-meps-challenge-to-eu-canada-free-trade-deal-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/667455\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court begins hearing Sinn F\u00e9in MEP\u2019s challenge to EU-Canada free trade deal \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A three-judge division of the High Court<\/a> has begun hearing a challenge by Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> MEP Lynn Boylan<\/a> over a law enabling the ratification of the Canada<\/a>–European Union<\/a> trade deal, known as Ceta<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The case, which is also being brought by Boylan\u2019s parliamentary assistant S\u00e1r\u00e1n Fogarty, is against the Government of Ireland and the attorney general.<\/p>\n

Arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs were made by barristers John Rogers and Eileen Barrington on Tuesday. Attorney General Rossa Fanning, with barrister Michael Cush, will make the case for the Government.<\/p>\n

The case concerns the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (Ceta), which was ratified in Ireland this year by the enactment of the Arbitration (Amendment) Act 2026.<\/p>\n

Arguments on behalf of Boylan centred on the interpretation of certain provisions of the Ceta agreement and the treatment of investors, which Boylan has said leaves the State liable to being sued by big businesses. <\/p>\n

The defendants reject the claims. <\/p>\n

The High Court is being asked by the Boylan side to refer to a 2022 Supreme Court decision in which Ceta was previously blocked after Patrick Costello<\/a>, then a Green Party TD, challenged the ratification of the agreement.<\/p>\n

Judges in the State\u2019s most senior court ruled that parts of the the deal would infringe the Constitution, stopping ratification in its tracks.<\/p>\n

It said that investor-state arbitration schemes in Ceta were not compatible with the Constitution. Such schemes \u2212 designed to settle disputes between states and investors \u2212 bypassed the role of Irish courts, which would be powerless to respond to an award granted by a Ceta tribunal, the court held.<\/p>\n

The Government says the 2026 Act addressed issues identified by the Supreme Court relating to the investor-courts system.<\/p>\n

The Act also enables ratification of other international agreements containing similar investor dispute resolution provisions, including with Chile.<\/p>\n

The free trade elements of the Ceta agreement, which included an abolition of almost all tariffs previously in place between Canada and the EU, have been provisionally in place since 2017.<\/p>\n

The case continues before President of the High Court Judge David Barniville and judges Cian Ferriter and Rory Mulcahy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A three-judge division of the High Court has begun hearing a challenge by Sinn F\u00e9in MEP Lynn Boylan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":667456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[289,282642,5148,73,61,60,69543,43,282643],"class_list":["post-667455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-canada","tag-ceta","tag-european-union","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-lynn-boylan","tag-news","tag-patrick-costello"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=667455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/667455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/667456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=667455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=667455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=667455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}