The Nature and Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice

Abstract

If the Treaties establishing the Communities were based on a traditional co-operation among the contracting States, a Court of Justice would not have been necessary.¹ Thus GATT or OECD, to cite only two examples, could have dispensed with a judicial institution. Moreover, the treaties establishing these organizations had no ambition to establish and develop a coherent legal system of their own. The situation is, however, funda­mentally different with the Treaties establishing the Communities. Precisely because they provided for a transfer of certain legislative, regulatory and executory powers of the Member States to the Com­munities, the creation of a Community Court became practically in­dispensable. The Community powers, though limited to the pursuance of specific objectives, would hardly have been conferred on the Communities unless the exercise of these powers were subject to a judicial review by a Community Court. The creation of the Court of Justice was the more indispensable as the Community powers were to be exercised not only over the Member States but over individuals and undertakings as well. The transfer of State powers, within a limited and specified field, to the Communities is the very raison d’être for the establishment of the Court.