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Courts and European Integration

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Judicial Activism

Part of the book series: Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice ((IUSGENT,volume 44))

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Abstract

The European Court of Justice is usually observed as the sole catalyst force that thrives the development of legal integration in the European Union. This view forgets that the enforceability of a supranational legal order in Europe is supported on the goodwill of Member States’ courts. The Treaties of Rome that created the European Communities in the 50s rejected the adoption of a federal jurisdictional system and gave national judges the mission of applying European Union law. This article explores the vivid doctrinal debate on the causes that led national courts to “internalize” European Union law even in the absence of effective enforcement mechanisms that secured the fulfillment of this crucial task for the sustainability of the European Union.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ECJ, 26/62, van Gend & Loos, ECR [1963] 1 at 12.

  2. 2.

    The possibility to sanction monetarily Member States was introduced later in the Maastricht Treaty (1993).

  3. 3.

    ECJ, 26/62, van Gend & Loos, ECR [1963] 1. The EEC treaty stated that regulations were binding in every respect and directly applicable in each Member State [art. 189 (2)]. The recognition of direct effect to other primary and secondary EU law provisions depends on an analysis by the ECJ of the fulfilment of certain conditions, such as clarity and unconditionality. The proclamation of direct effect was not in itself original. In 1932, the Permanent Court of International Justice referred that exceptionally an international agreement could, if that was the intent of the parties, adopt rules creating individual rights and obligations directly enforceable in national courts (Treatment of Polish Nationals and Other Persons of Polish Origin or Speech in the Danzig Territory, Advisory Opinion, (1932) PCIJ Series B 44, at 24 and 25).

  4. 4.

    ECJ, 6/64, Costa [1964] ECR 585.

  5. 5.

    ECJ 294/83, Les Verts [1986] ECR 1365, at 23.

  6. 6.

    Individuals usually lack direct access to Luxembourg. Natural or legal persons may only institute proceedings against an act addressed to that persons or which is of direct and individual concern to them, and against a regulatory act which is of direct concern to them and does not entail implementing measures [art. 263 (4) TFEU].

  7. 7.

    ECJ, opinion of Advocate-General Léger. C-224/01, Köbler, [2003] ECR I-10239, at 66.

  8. 8.

    ECJ, 11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, [1970] ECR 1125, at 3.

  9. 9.

    ECJ, 11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, [1970] ECR 1125, at 4.

  10. 10.

    This functionalist methodology is well documented in the constitutional cases. In van Gend & Loos, the Court declared that Treaty law could have direct effect, although the advocate-general Roemer said the Court could not say that without dealing first with the question of supremacy (ECJ, 26/62, van Gend & Loos, ECR [1963] 1: 23 and 24). One year afterwards, in Costa, the Court proceeded to state that supremacy is a necessary condition of direct effect (ECJ, 6/64, Costa [1964] ECR 585, at 3).

  11. 11.

    On this topic, see the chapter on this book of Lourenço Vilhena de Freitas that qualifies case law of the ECJ as an example of “weak activism”.

  12. 12.

    This was path followed, amongst others, by the German Constitutional Court (case 2 BvR 2134/92 and 2 BvR, 2159/9212.10.1993, “Maastricht”, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes , 89, 155, at 188 or case 2 BvE 2/08, 30.06.2009, “Lisbon”, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes, 123: 267, at 240 and 241), the Italian Constitutional Court (case 232/1989, 21 May 1989, “Fragd”, available at www.giurcost.org), the Danish Supreme Court (case I-361/1997, 6 April 1998, “Carlssen”, translation available at Common Market Law Reports 3 1999: 854), the Polish Constitutional Court (case K 18/04, 11 May 2005, translation available at www.trybunal.gov.pl/, at 13) or the Czech Constitutional Court (case P1.ÚS 19/08, 26 November 2008, “Lisbon”, translation available at http://www.usoud.cz/en/decisions/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=484&cHash=621d8068f5e20ecadd84e0bae0527552, n.º 120).

  13. 13.

    “Vabre”, 24 May 1975, available at www.lexinter.net.

  14. 14.

    “Cohn Bendit”, 22 November 1978, available at www.lexinter.net.

  15. 15.

    Case 232/1975, 30 October 1975, “Ministero del commercio con l’estero”, and case 170/1984, 5 June 1985, “Granital”, both available at www.giurcost.org.

  16. 16.

    Case 2 BvR 225/699.06.1971, “Lütticke”, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes, 31: 145, n.º 3, a).

  17. 17.

    ECJ, 106/77, Simmenthal II [1978] ECR 629; Case C-105/03, Pupino [2005] ECR I-5285.

  18. 18.

    ECJ, 166/83, Rheinmuhlen [1974] ECR 33, at 4; ECJ, 126/80, Salonia [1981] ECR 1563; Case C-2/06, Kempter [2008] ECR I-411, at 42.

  19. 19.

    According to Karen Alter (1999: 243) this behavior of supreme courts is merely a tendency. Supreme courts may favor the reception of the case law of the ECJ. That happens when they challenge the validity of EU law. In that case, a supranational decision increases their domestic influence vis-à-vis the national governments and the European institutions.

  20. 20.

    House of Lords, 22 May 1974 (“Bulmer”), at 9, available at http://links.laws.londoninternational.ac.uk/bookmarkpress/hp-bulmer-ltd-anor-v-j-bollinger-sa-ors-1974-ewca-civ-14-22-may-1974/.

  21. 21.

    The French Conseil d’État, in a decision of 22 November 1978 (“Cohn Bendit”), available at www.lexinter.net, and the German Bundesfinanzhof , in a decision of 25 April 1985 (case VR 123/84, “Kloppenburg”, Entscheidungen des Bundesfinanzhof, 143, at 383), rejected the direct effect of directives. The Italian Constitutional Court in a decision from 30 October 1975 (case 232/1975, “Ministero del commercio con l’estero”), available at www.giurcost.org, declared that ordinary courts did not had the power trump Italian law that conflicted with EU law.

  22. 22.

    This possibility is available in the Netherlands (ECJ, 13/61, Bosch, [1962] ECR 45, at 11), in Spain (Cienfuegos Mateo 2008: 68), in the United Kingdom (Court of Appeal, 16 October 1992, “International Stock Exchange”, Common Market Law Reports 2 1993, at 715–716) and in Hungary (ECJ, Advocate-General Poiares Maduro, opinion of 22 May 2008, C-210/06, Cartesio, ECR [2008] ECR I-9641, at 11).

  23. 23.

    Amongst others, see the ECJ case C-213/89, Factortame, [1990] ECR I-2433, in which the Court recognized a duty on national courts to secure the full effectiveness of EU law, even when it is necessary to create a national remedy where none had previously existed.

  24. 24.

    This was the case of the preliminary references made by the constitutional courts of Austria (v. g. ECJ, C-143/99, Adrian-Wien Pipeline, [2001] I-8365), Belgium (v. g. ECJ, C-93/97, Fédération Belge des Chambres Syndicales de Médecins, ASBL, [1997] ECR I-4837), Italy (ECJ, C-169/08, Presidente del Consiglio dei Ministri [2009] ECR I-10821), Lithuania (ECJ, C-239/07, Sabatauskas, [2008] ECR I-07523) and Spain (ECJ, C-399/11 Melloni [2013] ECR). The same, however, cannot be said of the preliminary reference made by the German Constitutional Court in February 2014 concerning the decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) to implement the Outright Monetary Transaction (OMT) Program. The German court considers the program unlawful both under national constitutional law and EU law and asked the ECJ to declare it ultra vires and in violation of the Treaty no-bailout provision (art. 123 TFEU). On 14 January 2015, the Spanish Advocate General Cruz Vilallón upheld the general compatibility of the OMT program with the European Treaties (C-62/74, Gauweiler). However, the German Constitutional Court hinted that it would declare the OMT decision to be ultra vires, unless the Court of justice restricts the current scope of the program. Contrary to what happened, for instance, in the “bananas saga” in the mid 90s, where the German Constitutional Court established an indirect dialogue with the ECJ on the level of protection of fundamental rights through the intermediation of lower courts (Claes 2006: 445), in this case the Karlsruhe court assumed the possibility of a direct confrontation with the Luxembourg court using the preliminary reference procedure. We have then a constitutional crisis in the making that could still be avoided if the ECJ incorporates some of the concerns of the German Constitutional court and restrains the current scope of the OMT program. Such a decision would be most to the prejudice of Member States like Portugal that have benefited greatly from a more un-orthodox approach to its monetary competences by the ECB and could be interpret as vindicating Garrett’s (1992: 557–559) argument that the ECJ is a faithful agent of the most powerful Member States interests.

  25. 25.

    German Constitutional Court, 22 October 1986 (“Solange II”) 2 BvR 197/83, Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichtes, 73: 339, 1, a) and aa); Austrian Constitutional Court, 11 November 1995, B2300/95-18, available at www.ris.bka.gv.at/vfgh/, 4, b)); Spanish Constitutional Court, Case 58/2004, 19 April 2004, available at www.tribunalconstitucional.es.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Rua dos Lusíadas, 118, 4 D, 1300-376, Lisbon, Portugal

    Francisco Pereira Coutinho

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  1. Francisco Pereira Coutinho
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Correspondence to Francisco Pereira Coutinho .

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  1. Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Luís Pereira Coutinho

  2. Università "Magna Graecia" di Catanzaro, Catanzaro, Italy

    Massimo La Torre

  3. University of San Diego, San Diego, California, USA

    Steven D. Smith

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Coutinho, F.P. (2015). Courts and European Integration. In: Coutinho, L., La Torre, M., Smith, S. (eds) Judicial Activism. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 44. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18549-1_13

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