Abstract
The purpose of this essay is to reconstruct how the integration process of the international and supranational Charters on fundamental rights within the multi-level system is changing the essence of the identity of the judge as conceived by the traditional nation-state model. This evolution concurs to carve out a growing trend that sees the ordinary judge as a pivot player of a judicial path to the European integration process. Judicial implementation of the fundamental rights provided by both the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and the European Convention of Human Rights into national legal orders is nowadays the most significant test-bench. This process particularly brings into question two aspects of the traditional view of the role played by the judicial function in the nation-state. The first sensitive point regards the long-established way to conceive the illuminist idea of separation of powers, one of whose essential cores is the principle of submission of the judge to the primacy of statutory law, in which the states mostly tied to the civil law legal tradition are mainly rooted. Second, a process of sovereignty dilution calls into question the long-established conception of sovereignty in the modern state whose cornerstone is the legitimate claim of the nation-state to exert the sovereignty in an exclusive manner over its own territory. The multi-level integration process requires national judges to put into play new professional skills that are not necessarily part of their genetic heritage and to be able to manage the logic inherent to judge-made law systems. First, the ratio decidendi-oriented reasoning and the result-oriented approach characterising the epistemological approach of the European Court of Human Rights and the method of distinguishing on which it is grounded. Second, the para-legislative power of the European Court of Justice and the teleological-orientation of the EU legal order. Third, the cultural impact of both the European non-discrimination principle and the balancing test on the judicial practice. Forth, the impact of the principles of primacy of EU law and direct effect onto the traditional doctrine of the national sovereignty in the modern state.
Francesco Perrone is Labour Judge at Court of Padova. He holds a PhD in Constitutional Law.
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Notes
- 1.
Cartabia (2007), p. 59.
- 2.
Garapon and Allard (2005), passim.
- 3.
de Charles Montesquieu (1748), Book XI, ch. 6.
- 4.
See for example Article 101 § 2 of the Italian Constitution.
- 5.
GC, C-441/14, Rasmussen v. Dansk Industri, 19.4.2016.
- 6.
Gallo (2017), p. 249.
- 7.
C.C., no. 115 of 10.4.2018.
- 8.
ECJ, GC, C-42/17, M.A.S., M.B., 5.12.2017, GC, C-105/14, Taricco, 8.9.2015.
- 9.
ECtHR, GC, 21.10.2013, Del Rio Prada v. Spain, no. 42750/2009.
- 10.
See, for example, the ECtHR judgment 20.11.1989, Kostovski v. the Netherland, no. 11454/85, which led the Dutch Supreme Court to amend its own well-established case law on the use of statements anonymously made by witnesses during the preliminary investigation in criminal trials (H.R., no. 2.7.1990). See Efthymiou and de Wit (2013), p. 75.
- 11.
Hartley (1986), p. 229.
- 12.
ECJ, C-292/04, Wienand Meilicke and Others, 6.3.2007.
- 13.
C.C., no. 311/2011, n. 241/2005, n. 125/2004.
- 14.
A. Rosas (2007), Separation of powers in The European Union. https://scholar.smu.edu/til/vol41/iss4/6.
- 15.
ECtHR, GC, 21.10.2013, Del Rio Prada v. Spain, no. 42750/2009.
- 16.
S.C., no. 197 of 28.2.2006.
- 17.
See also Kokkinakis v. Greece, 25.51993, no. 14307/88, §§ 40-41; Cantoni v. France, 15.11.1996, no. 17862/91, § 29; Coëme and Others v. Belgium, nos. 32492/96, 32547/96, 32548/96, 33209/96 and 33210/96, § 145; E.K. v. Turkey, 7.2.2002, no. 28496/95, § 51.
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C.C., no. 230 of 12.10.2012.
- 19.
Article 673 c.p.p.
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- 21.
On the difference between potestas and auctoritas, see Res gestae divi Augusti, Pars prima, cap. XXXIV.
- 22.
- 23.
A. Cochin, L’esprit du jacobinisme, Paris, 1779, passim.
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- 25.
- 26.
U.S. Supreme Court, Marbury v. Madison, 1803; United States v. Nixon, 1974.
- 27.
Dworkin (1977), p. 184.
- 28.
Rawls (1983).
- 29.
ECJ, C-26/62, Van Gend en Loos, 5.2.196; C-6/64, Costa v. Enel, 15.7.1964; C-106/77, Simmenthal, 9.3.1978.
- 30.
ECJ, GC, C-106/89, Marleasing, 13.11.1990. See also C-282/10, Dominguez, 11.11.2015; C-91/92, Faccini Dori, 14.7.1994; C-129/96, Nier-Environnement Wallonie, 18.12.1997; C-131/97 Carbonari, 25.2.1999.
- 31.
ECJ, GC, joined cases C-397/01 to C-403/01, Pfeiffer, 5.10.2004.
- 32.
ECJ, GC, C-106/89, Marleasing, 13.11.1990, § 26; C-63/97, BMW, 23.2.1999, § 22; joined cases C-240/98 to C-244/98, Ocèano Grupo Editorial, 5.10.2004; C-408/01, Adidas-Salomon, 23.10.2003, § 21.
- 33.
Bell (2003), p. 91.
- 34.
ECJ, C-64/16, Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses, 27.2.2018.
- 35.
ECJ, C-32/12, Soledad Durante Hueros, 3.10.2013; joined cases C-568/14 to C-570/14, Fernández Oliva and others, 26.10.2016; C-101/01, Bodil Lindqvist’s, 6.11.2003.
- 36.
ECJ, C-243/08, Pannon GSM Ztr., 4.6.2009, § 25.
- 37.
ECJ, C-169/14, Sánchez Morcillo, 17.7.2014.
- 38.
ECJ, C-43/75, Defrenne v. Sabena, 15.6.1978; C-11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, 17.12.1970; C-75/82, Razzouk and Beydoun v. Commission, 20.3.1984.
- 39.
M. Barbera (2018), Principi contesi e contese su principi. Gli effetti dei principi di eguaglianza e non discriminazione nella giurisprudenza della Corte di Giustizia. http://csdle.lex.unict.it/Archive/WP/WP%20CSDLE%20M%20DANTONA/WP%20CSDLE%20M%20DANTONA-IT/20181008-105240_Barbera_n372-2018itpdf.pdf.
- 40.
ECJ, C-43/75, Defrenne v. Sabena, 15.6.1978; ECtHR, Marckx v. Belgium, no. 6833/74, 13.6.1979; Abdulaziz v. The United Kingdom, no. 9214/80, 28.5.1985.
- 41.
Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics. Chicago: University Chicago Press, Book 5, Ch. 5.
- 42.
ECtHR, GC, Burden v. the United Kingdom, no. 13378/05, 29.4.2008; Guberina v. Croatia, no. 23682/13, 22.32016. ECJ, GC, Egenberger, C-414/16, 17.4.2018; GC, IR v. JQ, C-68/17, 11.9.2018; Abercrombie & Fitch Italia Srl, C-143/16, 19.7.2017.
- 43.
ECtHR, Eweida v. United Kingdom, no. 46852/13, 15.1.2013. See, in particular, the joint partly dissenting opinion of Judges N. Vučinić and V. De Gaetano.
- 44.
ECJ, Samira Achbita, C-157/2015, 14.3.2017.
- 45.
ECJ, Asma Bougnaoui, C-188/2015, 14.3.2017.
- 46.
V. De Gaetano (2014), Riflessioni sulla libertà di religione e di coscienza: l’articolo 9 della convenzione europea dei diritti dell’uomo. Online Working Paper, 61. http://www.cde.unict.it/quadernieuropei/linguistico-letterarie/61_2014.pdf.
- 47.
- 48.
Handbook on European non-discrimination law, 2018 edition, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, European Court of Human Rights, 92. https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2018/handbook-european-law-non-discrimination.
- 49.
ECtHR, GC, Bărbulescu v. Romania, no. 61496/08, 5.9.2017.
- 50.
Perrone (2018), p. 283.
- 51.
C.C., judgment no. 49 of 14.1.2015.
- 52.
See, ex multis, ECHR, GC, Lekić v. Slovenia, 11.12.2018, no. 36480/07, § 107-112.
- 53.
ECJ, C-106/77, Simmenthal SpA, 9.3.1978.
- 54.
C.C., no. 17 of 18.6.1984.
- 55.
Craig (2009), p. 349.
- 56.
In respect of Articles 21, 31 and 47 CFREU, see ECJ, GC, C-193/17, Cresco, 22.1.2019; GC, C-684/16, Max-Planck, 6.11.2018; GC, C-68/17, IR c. JQ, 11.9.2018; C-322/16, Global Starnet Ltd, 20.12.2017; GC, C-441/14, Rasmussen v. Dansk Industri, 19.4.2016.
- 57.
ECJ, GC, C-414/16, Egenberger, 17.4.2018.
- 58.
C.C., no. 269 of 14.12.2017.
- 59.
D. Gallo (2019), Efficacia diretta del diritto UE, procedimento pregiudiziale e Corte Costituzionale: una lettura congiunta delle sentenze n. 269/2017 e 115/2018. Rivista AIC, https://www.rivistaaic.it/images/rivista/pdf/1_2019_Gallo.pdf.
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R. Conti (2019), Giudice comune e diritti protetti sulla Carta UE. https://www.europeanrights.eu.
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Perrone, F. (2019). The Judicial Path to European Constitutionalism: The Role of the National Judge in the Multi-Level Dialogue. In: Pinto de Albuquerque, P., Wojtyczek, K. (eds) Judicial Power in a Globalized World. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-20744-1_26
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