The Theory Of Supremacy Of Eu Law

This essay advances the position that the quotation under discussion is, with all due respect to the Author, entirely incorrect. It is the counter-argument of this essay that the Courts of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) have ‘abused’ their interpretive jurisdiction, and, in places, have even done violence to the very wording of the Treaty itself.

State sovereignty and supremacy of European Union law are traditionally seen as fundamentally opposite in nature. The rights of states to deal with national issues internally, in compliance with national law, versus the obligation on states to subordinate national law to Community law.

6. The European Court of Justice can overrule all member states’ courts on which issues?

This essay will review the difference types of competences and examine the effectiveness of the European Court of Justice in ensuring that EU institutions do not exceed the bounds of their competence in adopting legislation.

“…judicial and legislative developments *have+ made the *infringement+ procedure [come] of age- from a rarely used, opaque and policy-driven procedure, it has now become a common, fairly transparent and highly technical procedure.” Prete & Smuldres “The coming of age of infringement proceedings” (2010) 47 CMLR 9 Has the infringement procedure finally “come of age”? Critically outline the key features of the Article 258 TFEU procedure and relevant caselaw. Article 258 TFEU (Formerly Art 226 EC) empowers the European Commission to deliver a reasoned opinion to a member state when it considers that the state has failed to fulfil an obligation under the treaties. The action seeks to “fulfil an obligation under the EC Treaty” and to “obtain a

There are two types of direct effect: Horizontal, between private individuals and Vertical, between individuals and the state. This is fact that direct effect is not clearly stated in any of the EU Treaties. The Treaty articles has direct effect, such as, Van Gend En Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen principle of direct effect set out in this case and gave full authority to the EEC Treaty. This case provided a flurry of activity in the Court of Justice, which created many of judgements and brining about further integration, such as the primacy of EU law as stated in Costa v ENEL 1964 . This case is further endorsement that under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), a court is responsible to refer cases that have reached the highest point of appeal in their own country, if there is a question of the application of EU Law. Costa had reached its highest point of

The crux of the discussion of the essay is to determine whether the principles of direct effect, supremacy and member state liability are capable of protecting individuals’ rights. Direct effect is a directly effective provision that a natural or legal person can rely on in national courts. Supremacy is where a provision on national and EU law are in conflict, the latter will prevail. Member state liability is that the individuals can seek for compensation from the State when there is a failure on the State’s part to implement the EU Law.

This paper will assess the claim that supremacy of EU law is still an evolving and debatable concept. To do this, I have divided this paper into four sections. The first section will discuss the establishment of supremacy in EU law through ECJ case law. The second section will explore the vibrant debate surrounding constitutional pluralism that has arisen since the early 1990s. The third section will examine the debate and impact of the codification of primacy in the early 2000s. The fourth section will examine the extent to which the principle of sovereignty has been accepted in three EU Member States, namely, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Poland.

State sovereignty and supremacy of European Union law are traditionally seen as fundamentally opposite in nature. The rights of states to deal with national issues internally, in compliance with national law, versus the obligation on states to subordinate national law to Community law.

Enforcing the European Union legal system is diverse and done on multiple platforms; through not only actions taken against member states for breach of their obligations, but also, for example, through the use of direct effect1. Article 267 TFEU; an organism devised to practice private enforcement of EU law before national courts, has been critical to ensure uniform interpretation and application of EU law in member states. References for preliminary rulings occur when the national courts are presented with a question of EU law due to uncertainty of the provision. The national court will therefore ‘make a reference to the Court of Justice (COJ) to obtain a preliminary ruling on any point of EU law relevant to the proceedings’2. In

The CJEU case-law on horizontal direct effect of directives arguably lacks consistency in regards to the application of the general principle. The principle of direct effect was established in Van Gend en Loos v. Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen. Although there is no set definition of direct effect, a broader definition was provided in Van Gend en Loos that it “can be expressed as the capacity of a provision of EU law to be invoked before a national court.” However, Van Dyun v. Home Office established that directives are capable of direct effect. Furthermore, Marshall v. Southampton established that there could only be vertical direct effect of directives. This stringent principle has arguable ignited the highly contested debate of whether or not horizontal direct effect is applicable to directives or if directives could only have vertical direct effect. However, this essay shall explore the lack of consistency in case-law regarding horizontal direct effect of directives. Firstly, this paper will delve into the case-law of the topic of horizontal direct effect of directives in efforts to try to highlight its consistency in its approach. Secondly, the paper will use case law and the opinion of academics (enter the name of the academics later) to highlight its inconsistencies using the legal mechanisms that have been introduced by the Courts to try to compensate for the lack of horizontal direct effect of directives. Namely, indirect effect, incidental horizontal

One of the fundamental objectives of the EU was to ensure that the law is interpreted in a consistent manner within the national courts of the Member States, expectedly this has caused complications on the issue of supremacy between the EU and the national law, the Member States presumed that they were allowed to exercise national sovereignty internally. Fundamentally, the Treaties are binding on all other Member States. The European Parliament and the Council of Ministers have enacted laws, hence the European Court has the authority to make the final judicial decisions. Therefore, in order to understand the conflict between the EU and the national law, we must first understand the concept of supremacy by defining what it is and how do national courts perceive it. The statement suggests that the issue of supremacy between the EU and the national law is ineffective unless a conflict arises. This essay will discuss progressively the operation of EU and national laws along with historical developments and criticisms, to examine as to what extent the statement is valid.

However again this higher status can be seen as limited as is only assumed from a written obligation. Therefore to asses if supremacy is not the challenge to member state sovereignty that is appears to be, a close analysis of how the CJEU has dealt with the issue of supremacy of EU law in case law is needed, firstly looking at Van Gend en Loos which stated that the ‘EU was a new legal order permanently limiting the sovereign rights of the Member State’. This customs case helped establish the ‘relationships between the European Union and international law…to grantee that the rules of one system are complied with in another legal order ’ showing in practise that if on a national level EU law is breached CJEU will take supremacy and comply with ‘the integrity of the EU legal order’ . Further evaluation of the limits of the supremacy can be seen in the case of Costa V ENEL where ‘Italy had claimed that the EU treaties…had been transposed into the Italian legal order by national legislation, which could therefore be derogated by subsequent national legislation. The court rejected this presumption of the supremacy of national law by insisting on the supremacy of EU law’ . This case holds significance as it ‘is well-known since Costa V ENEL the court has affirmed the supremacy of Community law over national law’ strongly suggesting the continued existence of EU supremacy is not frequently

The first claim is that European integration has led to an increase of executive power on the one hand and on the other hand that national parliament lose more of their power (Hix & Follesdal 2006:534, Raunio 1999). It is true, that members of governments of members-states of the EU participate in the legislation process such as ministers from national governments in the council of minister. As a result, it is possible that national governments can overcome the national parliaments when vote or co-decision in legislative process in the EU (Hix & Follesdal 2006).

European Union Law challenges the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty. The European Union also has the doctrine of supremacy which means all member states must adhere to European Union laws as opposed to their own national laws. This may have restrained Parliamentary Sovereignty in the UK upon its entry to the European Union in 1972. In order to comply with the European Court of Justice the UK Parliament enacted the European Communities Act 1972 and the Human Rights Act 1998.