Dumb question: If Iceland had been part of the EU in 2008, would they have been able not to bail out their bankers and send them to jail? Could the banking industry have been able to go to a supranational court or something?
Much of what was written about us in 2008 was sensationalized, especially regarding us "jailing the bankers" and "rewriting the constitution"
A few middle managers took the fall for the actual top bankers and served at most a few months in a country club-esque open prison for non-violent offenders. There was a news item years ago about one getting upset for losing weekend privileges to get ice cream at a local shop.
Our new constitution was thrown out for not being created in an acceptable manner.
Regarding your last question, we did bring in outside investigators from the EU for parts of initial investigation / prosecution.
I'd recommend Sigrún Davíðsdóttir's blog (http://uti.is/) if you want more detailed coverage of what actually happened here.
> Our new constitution was thrown out for not being created in an acceptable manner.
This is not true (or at least it is not that simple [but you probably know that]). The new constitution is still a draft which was accepted to become a new constitution in a national referendum in 2012. There was nothing inadequate about the drafting of it except failure by the ruling parties to deliver in the results of the referendum (I have my theories as of why which I will say later).
I think you may be referring to the judgement which made the election for the constitutional congress (a separate election the one which asked if we should adopt it, or parts of it), which was voided over (a rather petty) technicality (again I have my theories as to why). The parliament were able to bypass this by simply hiring the same people that won this election to the congress. The only thing this changes is that the mandate for writing the draft came from parliament instead of via a national election. And since it was composed of the same people, it changed absolutely nothing.
Now why then hasn’t the new constitution been adopted even though the nation voted to adopt it 12 years ago?
My theory is that the ruling parties are opposed to it, and don’t want it, even though the nation clearly wants it. Why are they opposed to it? My theory is that they are sheltering the interest of the fishing companies, since the new constitution makes it abundantly clear that the fisheries belong to the people of Iceland, and are not to be bought and sold like they are currently.
The notion that Iceland jailed a bunch of bankers and whatnot is just a stupid lie that morons love to regurgitate all over the internet. It's a meme in Iceland at this point how often it gets repeated.
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35485876