Suchergebnisse

The introduction to the collective book edited by the author analyses how the margin of appreciation of the national judge in the preliminary reference procedure depends on the double mandate to ensure effective implementation of European Union law and to guarantee an effective judicial protection. The national judge has a limited margin of appreciation while evaluating the need for a preliminary ruling and the relevance of the questions addressed to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The limitations stem from the consideration of the preliminary reference procedure as a tool to ensure effective judicial protection. The margin of appreciation of the national judge is more important while implementing EU law following the preliminary ruling of the Court, as he is is ensuring the balance between the Union's and Member States' interests.

Abstract
Empirical analysis shows that judges at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) tend to vote (85 to 90%) for their country of nationality. In order to outweigh this imbalance – already predicted in 1920 when drafting the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), the predecessor of the ICJ – the decision was taken to allow states which do not have a permanent judge of their nationality on the bench to nominate a judge ad hoc. The nationality bias is an important legitimacy issue for the Court. Inspired by Judge Thomas Buergenthal's public appeal and along the lines of Judge Bruno Simma's finding on the shift from 'bilateralism to community interest in international law', this article submits that a national judge at the ICJ should refrain from being a national judge by recusing herself when her home country is party to a case. In doing so she could protect herself from this nationality bias, which is a severe threat to (the appearance of) her impartiality and independence. Arguably, some one hundred years after the decision was taken against mandatory recusal on the basis of nationality when the Statute of the PCIJ was drafted, the international community is now demanding that individual judges of the principal judicial organ of the United Nations serve the community interest independently and impartially.

This paper explores factors that either motivate or constrain national judges' participation in the preliminary ruling procedure. By incorporating insights and evidence from American judicial politics literature and drawing from three models of judicial decision making: the attitudinal model, the team model, and the resource management model, it places the study of judicial behaviour with respect to the preliminary ruling procedure on more rigorous theoretical grounds. The paper is based on survey results conducted among 415 national judges from two new EU Member States: Slovenia and Croatia. In line with the theoretical predictions, the results show that the decision to make a referral to the CJEU is determined by several individual- and court-level factors. These are the position that a court occupies in a national judicial hierarchy, the judicial workload and availability of resources, and judges' knowledge and experiences with respect to EU law and Article 267 TFEU proceedings.