scholarly journals The concept of constitutional pluralism as the fundamental basis for the development of the European Union legal order

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (34) ◽  
pp. 361-378
Author(s):  
Vitalii Gutnyk ◽  
Ivan Bratsuk ◽  
Stepan Burak ◽  
Antonina Zubareva
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
Methodological Basis ◽  
Constitutional Pluralism

The objective of this article is to analyze the concept of constitutional pluralism as a methodological basis for the construction of the legal system of the European Union. In particular, attention is paid to investigating the particularities of the interaction and operation of the different constitutional legal systems within the legal sphere of the European Union, studying the constitutional collisions derived from the interaction of European Union law and the law national of the Member States. Dialectical, comparative legal, historical, systemic-structural and formal dogmatic methods were used in the research. The article concluded that the national constitutional courts of the Member States of the European Union can give priority to their constitutional rules only if those rules are clear and reflect substantial constitutional obligations. However, in any case, in order to maintain the coherence of the legislation of the European Union and the national legislation of the Member States, it is necessary to amend the national Constitutions of the Member States of the European Union.

scholarly journals The recent jurisprudence of the CJEU on personal data retention: implications for criminal investigation in Portugal

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-56
Author(s):  
Alessandra Silveira ◽  
Pedro Miguel Freitas
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Personal Data ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Criminal Investigation ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Data Retention ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Criminal Convictions ◽  
Location Data

It can be concluded from the Tele2 judgment of 2016 that i) the declaration of invalidity of the provisions contained in a directive inevitably affects the legal act of transposition into the legal order of the Member States, and ii) a Member State cannot resort to the Directive 2002/58 to impose a generalised and undifferentiated obligation to conserve traffic and location data following the declaration of invalidity of Directive 2006/24. It is, therefore, urgent to draw conclusions from this recent ruling by the CJEU, which is all the more relevant because, in Member States where the transposed legislation continued to apply following the declaration of invalidity of Directive 2006/24 – as was the case in Portugal – many criminal convictions were based on the access to potentially illegitimate data. The authors seek to demonstrate what is happening in Portugal in this area and call for compliance with the jurisprudence of the CJEU – not only because the effectiveness of the European Union law is at stake, but also (and above all), the legal equality between European citizens.

How to Assess the Effectiveness of the Pan-European General Principles of Good Administration

2020 ◽  
pp. 55-77
Author(s):  
Ulrich Stelkens ◽  
Agnė Andrijauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Administrative Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Member States ◽  
National Legislation ◽  
The Impact

This chapter discusses the approach used in this book to assess the effectiveness of the pan-European general principles of good administration in harmonizing the domestic administrative law of the Member States of the Council of Europe with regard to the ‘limiting function’ of administrative law. It explains the criteria justifying the choice of the twenty-eight Member States included in the research and the exclusion of the others. It gives reasons why the research is not extended to the impact of these principles on the (supranational) legal order of the European Union. Finally, it explains the methods used by the national experts to assess the impact and effectiveness of the pan-European general principles of good administration in their respective legal orders, i.e. the so-called paths of reception, namely through national legislation, through administrative self-commitments, and through national case law referring to and directly applying these principles as standards of review.

Constitutional Jurisdictions Between the Supremacy of the Constitution and the Primacy of European Union Law

De Jure ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktoriya Mingova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
Main Task ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Unique Nature

The interaction between the national constitutional jurisdictions of the Member States and the Court of Justice of the European Union raises questions that often cannot be answered unequivocally. The focus of this debate is, of course, on the fundamental question of whether European Union law takes primacy over national constitutions. This study presents the jurisprudence of the Court of Justice on the establishment of the principle of autonomy of EU law in relation to the internal law of the Member States in its development, since it is precisely the positions it adopts that allow the Court of Justice to derive the principle of primacy over ‘any provision of internal law’ as a logical and natural consequence of the unique nature of EU law. On the other hand, since this integration activity of the Court of Justice is not the result of a conscious activity of the Member States, legitimated by their constitutions, the inevitable question arises of whether the results of the activity in question do not clash with the main task of the constitutional courts ‒ to ensure a coherent and uniform application of the law within the national legal order and above all in accordance with the constitution. The case law of the constitutional courts of the Member States presented in this study leads to the conclusion that they regard autonomy as a relative characteristic, which is why they reject the principle of absolute primacy of European Union law over constitutional rules. It seems that no constitutional court could abdicate its role as a court of ‘last word’ in this respect.

Foreign Affairs Federalism in the European Union

2019 ◽  
pp. 331-351
Author(s):  
Robert Schütze
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
International Law ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Member States ◽  
European Court ◽  
Treaty Of Rome ◽  
Formed Part ◽  
Mixed Agreements

The European Union was born as an international organization. The 1957 Treaty of Rome formed part of international law, although the European Court of Justice was eager to emphasize that the Union constitutes “a new legal order” of international law. With time, this new legal order has indeed evolved into a true “federation of States.” Yet how would the foreign affairs powers of this new supranational entity be divided? Would the European Union gradually replace the member states, or would it preserve their distinct and diverse foreign affairs voices? In the past sixty years, the Union has indeed significantly sharpened its foreign affairs powers. While still based on the idea that it has no plenary power, the Union’s external competences have expanded dramatically, and today it is hard to identify a nucleus of exclusive foreign affairs powers reserved for the member states. And in contrast to a classic international law perspective, the Union’s member states only enjoy limited treaty-making powers under European law. Their foreign affairs powers are limited by the exclusive powers of the Union, and they may be preempted through European legislation. There are, however, moments when both the Union and its states enjoy overlapping foreign affairs powers. For these situations, the Union legal order has devised a number of cooperative mechanisms to safeguard a degree of “unity” in the external actions of the Union. Mixed agreements constitute an international mechanism that brings the Union and the member states to the same negotiating table. The second constitutional device is internal to the Union legal order: the duty of cooperation.

Review by Constitutional Courts of the Obligation of National Courts of Last Instance to Refer a Preliminary Question to the Court of Justice of the EU

2015 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. 1663-1700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Clelia Lacchi
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Constitutional Courts ◽  
Member States ◽  
Constitutional Review ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Judicial Remedy ◽  
The Eu

The Constitutional Courts of a number of Member States exert a constitutional review on the obligation of national courts of last instance to make a reference for a preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).Pursuant to Article 267(3) TFEU, national courts of last instance, namely courts or tribunals against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, are required to refer to the CJEU for a preliminary question related to the interpretation of the Treaties or the validity and interpretation of acts of European Union (EU) institutions. The CJEU specified the exceptions to this obligation inCILFIT. Indeed, national courts of last instance have a crucial role according to the devolution to national judges of the task of ensuring, in collaboration with the CJEU, the full application of EU law in all Member States and the judicial protection of individuals’ rights under EU law. With preliminary references as the keystone of the EU judicial system, the cooperation of national judges with the CJEU forms part of the EU constitutional structure in accordance with Article 19(1) TEU.

Termination of Criminal Proceedings in Public Criminal Cases by Courts of First Instance Under Art. 24, Para. 1, Item 5 of the Bulgarian Code of Criminal Procedure and Its Compliance with European Union Law

De Jure ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debora Valkova-Terzieva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
European Union Law ◽  
Member States ◽  
The Subject

The subject of this research is a specific prerequisite for the termination of criminal proceedings in public criminal cases, regulated in Article 24, Paragraph 1, Item 5 of the Bulgarian Code of Criminal Procedure. This analysis was necessitated by the fact that the European Union had introduced certain obligations for the Member States.

Non-EU Legal Instruments (EFSF, ESM, AND Fiscal Compact)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Martucci
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Fiscal Discipline ◽  
Member States ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Fiscal Compact ◽  
Angela Merkel

‘Another Legal Monster?’ That was the question asked by the Law Department of the European University Institute on 16 February 2012 in a debate about the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union (TSCG), also known as the Fiscal Compact Treaty. On 2 March 2012, twenty-five Member States of the European Union minus the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic signed the TSCG. A month before, on 2 February 2012, the euro area Member States signed the Treaty Establishing the European Stability Mechanism (ESM Treaty), another legal monster. In both cases, the monstrosity lies in the fact that Member States have preferred to conclude an international treaty, rather than to use the European Union (EU) institutional system. Why did the European Commission not propose a legislative act to establish a financial assistance mechanism in the Eurozone and strengthen the fiscal discipline in the EU? Does this mean the end of community method and a victory for the intergovernmental method? As Herman Van Rompuy commented about the crisis; ‘often the choice is not between the community method and the intergovernmental method, but between a co-ordinated European position and nothing at all’. In 2010, Angela Merkel defended her vision of a new ‘Union Method’ in a speech held at the College of Europe. This approach can be defined by the following description: ‘co-ordinated action in a spirit of solidarity–each of us in the area for which we are responsible but all working towards the same goal’. Each of us means the European institutions and Member States. The new ‘Euro-international’ treaties (or inter se treaties) raise a number of questions regarding their compatibility with EU law, implications for the Union legal system, institutional balance, national sovereignty and democratic accountability. These questions are all the more important because international treaties raise a number of questions on their compatibility with EU law, implications for the Union legal system and institutional balance.

The Impact of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the Russian Legal System

2020 ◽  
pp. 143-172
Author(s):  
Paul Kalinichenko
Keyword(s):  
European Union ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Final Section ◽  
Legal Order ◽  
Eu Law ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
System P ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Russian Model

This chapter presents the findings of the author on the impact of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the Russian legal system. To start with, this chapter includes a brief description of the background to the modern Russian legal system and, in particular, the structure of the Russian judiciary. The contribution goes on to describe the Russian model for approximating its legal order with EU rules and standards, as well as adding some remarks on the application of EU law by the Russian courts. Then follows an explanation of the specifics of the database used, together with a description and analysis of citation of CJEU decisions by Russian courts in the period 2006–18. Conclusions and recommendations are presented in the final section of the chapter.

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