EU guilty of 'power grab' against British justice system, says Dominic Grieve His provocative comments came days after a senior British judge attacked the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) for "straying beyond its remit into policy making and issues that most people would regard as inherently political." Lord Sumption, a Supreme Court judge criticised the ECHR for a strong of findings against the UK government over prisoner voting. Mr Grieve has previously warned ministers that they can not simply ignore judgments from the ECHR if the disagree with them. He said that his speech was not just "usual Euro-bashing by a British minister" and that he wanted to carefully "spell out what lies at the base of Britain's and other member states" frustrations with the EU." Accusing the EU of "woolly thinking," Mr Grieve said during a speech in Brussels: "Overstepping the boundaries under the treaties undermines the very legitimacy of EU action. To put it straightforwardly, the EU should only be doing what member states signed up to. And if this doesn't happen, its legitimacy in the eyes of the public is undermined. As [David Cameron] said in January, "democratic consent for the EU in Britain is now wafer thin."" It is "unacceptable" for the European Commission to "aggressively" exploit the rules to "side-step" opt-outs negotiated by EU member states, Mr Grieve said. It conveys the impression of an intellectual game designed to subvert the agreements which Ministers, answerable to electorates, entered into in good faith. The UK has already mounted a series of legal challenges in Europe and Mr Grieve warned that more could follow ahead of the next election. Mr Grieve also cited an EU attempt to regulate the use of jugs of olive oil on restaurant tables that he said caused "as much confusion and mirth amongst lawyers as it did among the wider public."