The decision cannot be appealed further, according to planning officials, although City Council members have the power to override commission decisions if they choose.
The draft bill also states that in the event of "absolute emergency," intelligence agencies would have ways of overriding the commission's recommendations, and in certain cases, the prime minister's.
But unless Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani overrides the commission's decision, no one will know whether riders would have read the newspaper, talked to the driver or complained vociferously to the commission.
And they have been reasserting their control over the EU's other main current adventure, expansion to the east, insisting that their political judgments on candidates should override the commission's procedural ones.It helps in all this that the old arguments against an EU dominated by national governments have ceased largely to apply.
If Ms. Kroes did decide to make an example of a bank, the risk would be that member states could reach for the nuclear option and seek to suspend the state aid regulations in the financial sector or use their power to override a commission decision unanimously.
Then, after a comment period, and after another public hearing, the city could choose to override the commission's decision.
Under state law, city councils can override the commission's decisions with a two-thirds majority, which Irvine has done with several projects.
While the U.S. Secretary of Commerce could override a commission finding that new oil drilling violated the state's management plan, federal courts have tended to side with states in such contests.
Overriding American objections, the commission voted last week for the second year in a row to call for a worldwide moratorium on executions.
That treaty would ideally begin by setting a minimum corporate tax rate and move toward the overriding principle of the commission's proposed reform: treating global companies as single entities taxed at a minimum rate.
And if Microsoft's patents can be overridden by the commission, doesn't that set a precedent for everyone else?
