Should We Polish It Up? The Polish Constitutional Tribunal and the Idea of Supremacy of EU Law
Just one year after Polish accession to the European Union, the Polish Constitutional Tribunal was provided the opportunity to clarify its position regarding the supremacy of EC and EU law. In its two recent judgments, it joined the long tradition of a rather uneasy relationship between national Constitutional Courts and European Court of Justice (ECJ). The uneasiness of this relationship results from an ever-unsolved dilemma – which of the two judicial fora should have the last word in case of conflict between European norms and national constitution norms? The solution given by European Court of Justice in a series of early judgments seems obvious. It opted for an absolute supremacy of EC norms over national norms. On the other hand, the national Constitutional Courts usually accept the supremacy of EC law - but only as a consequence of transfer of some competences under strict conditions set by national constitutions. They thus accept the concept named by Neil Walker “constitutional pluralism”, meaning that the states are no longer the sole source of constitutional authority. However, national constitutions are still the “primary” source of any such authority.