Abstract
The article identifies the reasons which moved the Czech Constitutional Court to declare the judgment of the European Court of Justice in C-399/09 Landtová concerning the application of social security schemes in unprecedented way as an ultra vires act and to deprive it of binding force within the domestic legal system. The author argues that a more express ECJ’s pronouncement about persons discriminated contrary to the respective EC Regulation, its more careful understanding of what exactly the Czech Court’s case law was saying and – in particular – a reference by the Czech Court for preliminary ruling concerning the interpretation of the EC Regulation could avoid the unfortunate outcome of the case. The limitation of Member States’s sovereignty by the European integration requires to make lines between the scope of competences conferred on the EU and the national ones also in the area of judicial power more transparent. This is what the article tries to do: to review the national reservations towards primacy of EU law as questionable, if their justification has not been cleared before by the ECJ.
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Notes
- 1.
The regulation no. 1408/71 on the application of social security schemes to employed persons and their families moving within the Community (Regulation); under Article 7 para 2 c/ it does not affect conventions on social security concluded between Member States, which shall continue to apply – as an exception - in so far as they are ensuring a more favourable treatment for beneficiaries or reflect for a limited time specific historical circumstances, subject to their inclusion in Annex III. Persons resident in the territory of one of the Member States to whome this Regulation applies shall be subject to the same obligations and enjoy the same benefits under the legislation of any Member State as the nationals of that State (Article 3 para 1). Safe as provided in Annex III, conventions which remain in force persuant to Article 7 para 2 c/ shall apply to all persons to whom this Regulation applies (Article 3 para 3).
- 2.
The CzCC calls it ‘delegation’, which is not correct enough: the transfer of powers cannot be taken back on a unilateral basis any more. A retraction would require a common agreement of all Member States at the level of primary law (i.e., a revision of the Treaty) or a withdrawal of the Member State from the Union (subject to Art. 50 TEU).
- 3.
Decision Lisbon I (Pl. ÚS 18/09) para 108: “The transfer of certain state powers that arises from the free will of the sovereign and will continue to be exercised with sovereign’s participation in a manner that is agreed on in advance and that is reviewable, is not a conceptual weakening of the sovereignty of a state, but, on the contrary, can lead to strenghtening it within the joint actions of an integrated whole.”Para 209: “In a modern, democracy-based state, state sovereignty is not an aim in and of itself, in isolation, but a means of fulfilling (…) fundamental values, on which the construction of a constitutional, law-based state stands.”
- 4.
The Treaty between the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic on Social Security of 29 October 1992, Art. 20 (Cz-Sk Treaty).
- 5.
Art. 3 para 1 Charter of Fundamental Rights and Basic Freedoms, Act no. 2/1993 Coll. (Charter).
- 6.
Art. 30 para 1 Charter.
- 7.
Opinion of A.G. Cruz Villalón in C-399/09, paras 34, 42.
- 8.
Landtová (note 1), paras 31–40; only the international treaties listed in section B of the Annex III may stipulate granting of benefits on a limited group(s) of pensioners.
- 9.
Act no. 428/2011 Coll., on the amendment of the act no. 155/1995 Coll.
- 10.
Decision of 25 August 2011, no. 3 Ads 130/2008-204.
- 11.
In the opinion of the Court, listing of the Cz-Sk Treaty in Annex of the Regulation had only a declaratory, not a constitutive importance.
- 12.
As a treaty agreed before the accession to the EU between two of its Member States without any special regime in the Treaty of Accession, no exception to the principle of primacy of Union law may be claimed.
- 13.
See comments above, note 9.
- 14.
Art. 21 Charter in conjunction with Art. 22 para 1 TFEU.
- 15.
This notion is well described by Pernice (Pernice 2011).
- 16.
See note 9.
- 17.
Order 6 Ads 18/2012-82 = C-253/12 JS v. Czech Social Security Administration, OJ C 273, 8. 9. 2012, 2.
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Zemánek, J. (2016). An ‘Entirely-Specific’ Situation or a Routine Limitation of the National Autonomy? Slovak pensions XVII of the Czech Constitutional Court. In: Arnold, R. (eds) Limitations of National Sovereignty through European Integration. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 51. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-7471-0_8
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