MATTHEWS v. THE UNITED KINGDOM JUDGMENT – JOINT DISSENTING OPINION 24 OF JUDGES Sir John FREELAND AND JUNGWIERT 5. As to the first of these questions, it is in our view intrinsic to the notion of a “legislature” that the body concerned should have the power to initiate legislation and to adopt it (subject, in the case of some national Constitutions, to the requirement of the assent of the head of State). If this power is lacking, the fact that the body may have other powers often exercisable by national legislatures (for example, powers in relation to censure of the executive or to the budget) is not enough to remedy the deficiency. The existence of such other powers may enhance the body’s entitlement to be styled as a parliament and its role in promoting an “effective political democracy”. But the facts that it is so styled and has such a role are not to be regarded as requiring it to be treated as a “legislature” unless it has in itself the necessary legislative power. 6. With the vestigial and for present purposes insignificant exception of its power under Article 95(3) of the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, the European Parliament has no power to initiate and adopt legislation. Even in the case of the so-called co-decision procedure (Article 189b) introduced by the Maastricht Treaty – a procedure to which much significance was attached on behalf of the applicant –, while the European Parliament has potential influence on the content of legislation and a power to block legislation to which it objects, it has neither the sole right to adopt legislation nor the power to force the Council to adopt legislation which the Council does not want. Nor does the procedure provide the Parliament with any opportunity to initiate legislation itself. 7. Thus, even if, as paragraph 50 of the judgment says, the Maastricht Treaty’s removal of the words “advisory and supervisory” to describe the powers of the European Parliament “must be taken as an indication that the European Parliament has moved away from being a purely consultative body, and has moved towards being a body with a decisive role to play in the legislative process of the European Community”, as matters stand (and stood at the time of the 1994 elections) that Parliament has not in our view reached a stage where it can of itself properly be regarded as constituting a legislature. To borrow the words of Professor Dashwood in his inaugural address at the University of Cambridge in November 1995, “the Community has no legislature, but a legislative process in which the different political institutions have different parts to play”. In fact, of the institutions of the Community it is the Council of Ministers which performs the functions most closely related to those of a legislature at national level.