Suchergebnisse

AbstractMartha Derthick, one of the nation's foremost scholars of federalism and public administration, died on January 12. Gareth Davies, one of her former students, reflects here on her intellectual legacy, especially as reflected in her publications, but also, more briefly, on her approach to mentoring.

If the ECJ delivers politically unwelcome judgments, can the legislature override these by adopting new laws? The question goes to the balance of power between legislators and courts, and to which organs are capable of steering the integration process. The answer in the EU context is distinctive, because the Union is so highly constitutionalized: most important legal questions are reducible to Treaty interpretation, which apparently excludes the legislature from their resolution. Drawing on American scholarship which advocates co-interpretation of the constitution by both legal and political branches, and using actual and hypothetical examples of situations where the legislature and the ECJ have wished to take different directions (e.g. citizenship, general principles, non-discrimination) this article examines three Court techniques to avoid legislative constraints: annulment, emasculatory interpretation, and avoidance. It also considers the ways in which legislation can be drafted to maximize its influence upon the Court.

Abstract: Free movement law follows the contours of freedom of contract very closely. It prevents public or private parties from interfering with the contractual freedom of others. It does not, however, appear to be understood by the Court of Justice to apply to contractual preferences as such. Thus, the gradual extension of its horizontal effect, culminating in Viking Line, does not represent a gradual encroachment on freedom of contract but a gradual extension of its power to prevent this freedom being restricted. This contractual orientation has liberalizing consequences that are probably economically inefficient, since they ignore the existing preferences of consumers, who do not always want liberalization. Nor can it be seen as a moral liberalism rooted in principled attachment to liberty: Freedom of contract appears to be instrumentally viewed by the Court, as a tool of integration. Rather, this article suggests that the contractual orientation of free movement reveals it to be an exercise in social engineering, seeking to nudge Europeans into changing their domestic preferences for more European ones. Résumé: Le droit de la libre circulation suit les contours de la liberté contractuelle de très près. Il empêche les parties publiques ou privées d'interférer avec la liberté contractuelle des autres. Il n'apparaît cependant pas être compris par la Cour de Justice comme s'applicant aux préférences contractuelles en tant que telles. Ainsi, l'extension progressive de son effet horizontal, aboutissant à Viking Line, ne représente pas un empiétement progressif sur la liberté contractuelle, mais plutôt une extension progressive de son pouvoir; afin d'empêcher cette liberté d'être restreinte. Cette orientation contractuelle a des conséquences concourant à la libéralisation qui sont probablement économiquement inefficaces, car elles ignorent les préférences existantes des consommateurs, qui ne souhaitent pas toujours la libéralisation. L'orientation contractuelle du droit de la libre circulation ne peut non plus être considérée comme un libéralisme moral enraciné dans l'attachement au principe de liberté. La liberté de contrat semble être considérée instrumentalement par la Cour, qui la voit comme un outil d'intégration. Cette analyse suggère plutôt que l'orientation contractuelle de la libre circulation révèle qu'il s'agit d'un exercice d'ingénierie sociale, cherchant à pousser les Européens à modifier leurs préférences nationales pour des choix plus Européens.

In practice and comments on EU internal market law, the Court and commentators often refer to the notion of 'market access' as if it is the keystone of the EU integration process and as if this would go beyond anti-discrimination rules. However, one cannot go beyond 'non-discrimination without entering the sphere of 'positive action. Yet, there is no legal, political or economic basis for positive action in the internal market context. A comparison with social law, where discrimination is a more developed concept, shows that the arguments for positive action are inappropriate to the economic context and that what are sometimes described as non-discriminatory rules constituting a restriction to free movement in fact usually constitute indirect discrimination. As for market access, economic theory tells us that the only rules that inhibit market access are those that have a discriminatory component. Thus anti-discrimination continues to be the essence of market-making and of market access and talk of 'going beyond' it is mere confusion. The goal and the logic of internal market law is substantive equality for all market actors – similarly to social law, from which it can learn much about the relevant concepts.

The cases decided by the Court of Justice concerning free movement of goods and services are often seen in terms of a difficult balance between trade and consumer protection. This paper suggests that their major consequences are not for the consumer at all, but for quality of life in European societies. Legislation which restricts what can be sold, and who can sell it, has consequences for equality, autonomy, social cohesion, and identity which are greater in importance than any consumer-protective effect. That the Court's focus is so unbalanced – it ignores these social concerns - is to do with several factors. Firstly, the Court has a transactional fixation, seeing contracts as essentially private matters which are of no concern to wider society. This view point is common in economic law, but unrealistic, and embodies some very controversial implicit political standpoints. Secondly, when the Court approaches the judicial review of national measures which restrict free movement it does not in fact engage in balancing at all, but seeks to reconcile interests, and to push integration forward. The ability of a national community to determine its own quality of life and express its values is something which evades easy reconciliation with a single market. On the contrary, integration brings unavoidable costs in autonomy and social concerns, and denial of this fact is harmful to both Europe and the EU. This argument proceeds by an examination of the case law concerning free movement, and the process of judicial review found within that law.