The Province of Delegated Legislation

2020 ◽  
pp. 145-172
Author(s):  
Jeff King
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
Executive Branch ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Perceived Need ◽  
Track Record ◽  
Legislative Oversight ◽  
Legal Challenges

Delegated legislation is produced by the executive branch of government, usually under powers conferred by legislatures. Such powers have provoked controversy in most contemporary democracies. There is a widely perceived need to bolster the democratic legitimacy of law produced in this way, either through greater legislative oversight or enhanced participation, or both. This chapter explores how the organically evolved UK constitution has struggled to meet this challenge since the outset of the twentieth century. It examines how the powers to adopt delegated legislation arose, the constitutional tensions it produced, and how that prehistory relates to the dramatic resort to such powers in recent legislation adopted to facilitate the UK’s departure from the European Union. More specifically, it surveys the experience of making and laying delegated legislation before Parliament, and the track record of parliamentary scrutiny, before considering how that background may play an important role in how Brexit-related delegated legislation may fare in legal challenges in the coming years.

The Role of National Constitutional Courts in European Democracy

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Grimm
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Economic Liberalization ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
European Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
European Court ◽  
European Democracy ◽  
And Function

This chapter examines the role of national constitutional courts in European democracy. It first provides an overview of national constitutional courts in Europe, focusing on the requirements that they impose on national institutions and the consequences of those requirements at the treaty level—i.e., transferring national powers to the European Union and regulating how these powers are exercised; at the level of the EU’s exercise of these powers; and at the level of implementing European law within national legal systems. The chapter also discusses how the European Court of Justice’s jurisprudence enabled the European treaties to function as a constitution; the non-political mechanism of EU decisions and how it promotes economic liberalization; and how the design and function of European primary law undermine democracy. The chapter suggests that the democratic legitimacy imparted to the EU’s decisions by its citizens can only develop within the framework of the European Parliament’s powers.

Instituting Europe: Germany, the Union, and the Legacy of the Short Century

2001 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Michael Werz
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Crucial Question ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Federal Structure

Recent debates about the future of the European Union have focusedin large part on institutional reforms, the deficit of democratic legitimacy,and the problem of economic and agrarian policies. As importantas these issues may be, the most crucial question at the momentis not whether Europe will prevail as a union of nations or as a thoroughlyintegrated federal structure. What is of much greater concernis the fact that political structures and their corresponding politicaldiscourses have lagged far behind the social changes occurring inEuropean societies. The pivotal transformation of 1989 has not beengrasped intellectually or politically, even though its results areincreasingly visible in both the east and west.

scholarly journals La peculiare costituzione dell'Unione Europea

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Erik Fossum ◽  
Agustin José Menendez
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
Institutional Structure ◽  
Constitutional Reform ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Distinctive Features

A unique political animal, the European Union has given rise to important constitutional conundrums and paradoxes that John Erik Fossum and Agustín José Menéndez explore in detail in this book. The authors consider the process of forging the EU's constitution and the set of fundamental norms that define the institutional structure, the decision-making procedures, and the foundations of the Union's democratic legitimacy. Their analysis illuminates the distinctive features of the EU's pluralist constitutional construct but also the interesting parallels to the Canadian constitutional experience and provides the tools to understand the Union's development, especially during the Laeken (2001–2005) and Lisbon (2007–2009) processes of constitutional reform.

scholarly journals Electoral and Mechanical Causes of Divided Government in the European Union

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (10) ◽  
pp. 1349-1370 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Manow ◽  
Holger Döring
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Mechanical Effect ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
The Political ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Government Formation ◽  
European Elections ◽  
The Eu

Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament (EP) apparently use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party—political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the EU Council. This study shows that opposed majorities between council and parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of more extreme and EU-skeptic parties in the Council, whereas voters in EP elections vote more often for these parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament are therefore caused by two effects: a mechanical effect—relevant for the composition of the Council—when national votes are translated into office and an electoral effect in European elections. The article discusses the implications of this finding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy.

3. The Transfer of Powers and Union Competences

2021 ◽  
pp. 71-93
Author(s):  
Nigel Foster
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
Union Section ◽  
And Control

This chapter examines the multifaceted and increasingly complex relationship between the European Union and its member states. The chapter begins with the transfer of sovereign powers and the democratic legitimacy of the Union and the establishment of constitutionalism within the Union. Section 3.4 considers the transfer of powers from the member states and the division and control of competences between the Union and the member states. In this context, the principles of subsidiarity and of proportionality are discussed, which are the political solutions to the very emotive questions about how power is shared between the Union and the member states.

Unmaking Democratic Europe

2020 ◽  
pp. 294-312
Author(s):  
Martin Conway
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
European Union ◽  
Large Degree ◽  
Global Capitalism ◽  
The Other ◽  
Democratic Politics ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Post War ◽  
First Time

This concluding chapter describes how the Europe of the 1990s was for the first time in its history both united and democratic. But the sudden turning point of 1989 lacked something of the global significance of the other European post-war moments of the twentieth century in 1918 and 1945. Europe no longer stood at the centre of its own history, as demonstrated by the ineffective response of the European Union to the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and by the divisions that emerged among European states during the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In economic terms, too, the ascendancy of a new global capitalism obliged Europe to accept the economic weather generated by more distant or universal forces. In addition, however, Europe had lost confidence in the democratic model that it had developed and, to a large degree, patented. The more fractured and fluid politics that had emerged in Europe by the end of the twentieth century might be more appropriately described as post-democracy: a politics still conducted through the language and institutional structures of democracy, but which lacked much of the former substance of democratic politics.

Discourse and Democracy

2020 ◽  
pp. 233-261
Author(s):  
Chris Heffer
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Weapons Of Mass Destruction ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Common Theme ◽  
The European Union ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Voter Fraud

This chapter summarizes the main analytical moves in the TRUST heuristic for analyzing untruthfulness. It then applies the heuristic to three short texts that have been widely called out as lies: Trump’s tweet about large-scale voter fraud just before the 2016 presidential elections; the “Brexit Battle Bus” claim that the United Kingdom sent £350 million per week to the European Union; and Tony Blair’s 2002 statement to Parliament about Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction. The cases share a common theme: the capacity of untruthful public discourse to undermine democratic legitimacy by, respectively, questioning the integrity of electoral procedures, harming the capacity of voters to make a rational choice, and undermining faith in the rational and responsible deliberation of one’s leaders. The chapter troubles the simple attribution of lying in these cases and shows how a TRUST analysis can lead to a deeper understanding of the types and ethical value of untruthfulness.

Europarties’ election pledges and European Commission legislative priorities: An assessment of their overlap

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (6) ◽  
pp. 795-806
Author(s):  
Petia Kostadinova ◽  
Magda Giurcanu
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
European Union ◽  
European Commission ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Data Set ◽  
People's Party ◽  
European People’S Party ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Institutional Relations

Utilizing a newly compiled data set, this article demonstrates that some election pledges made by the transnational Europarties are included among the European Commission priorities issued during the pre-legislative stage. The data set consists of 597 promises made by four transnational Europarties during the 2004 and 2009 European Parliament (EP) elections and of 698 subsequent Commission legislative intentions. Focusing on the time periods during the Barroso presidencies, the article’s findings suggest that (1) decision-making rules in the EP help us understand which transnational pledges are included in Commission priorities and (2) promises by two Europarties, such as the European People’s Party and the European Liberal and Democrat Party, are more likely to be considered by the Commission than those of other Europarties. Our results speak to scholarly debates on the place of the Europarties in the European Union inter-institutional relations and more broadly on the democratic legitimacy of the Union.

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