Has the European Court of Justice been involved in “Judicial Leglisation”?
Av jur. dr JOHN TEMPLE LANG
Det har sagts att EU-domstolen har ägnat sig åt judicielllagstiftning och överskridit sina befogenheter som domstol för att tänka ut nya rättsregler. I SvJT 2011 s. 129 framhölls att de flesta domar som kritiserats på detta sätt var den logiska följden av fördragens bestämmelser eller av medlemsstaternas skyldigheter enligt Europeiska konventionen om skydd förde mänskliga rättigheterna. Viss del avkritiken grundar sig på missförstånd. Fördragen har ändrats ett flertal gånger men inga av de kritiserade domarna har upphävts. Fördragen skapade en helt ny rättsordning och det är inte förvånande att de inte förutsåg varje tänkbar situation. Men ett viktigt problem kvarstår: när bör EU-domstolen "lagstifta" för att åtgärda brister i EUlagstiftningen?
Introduction
In the previous paper1, a number of leading cases decided by the European Court of Justice were discussed, and it was argued that they were mostly the logical implications of Treaty provisions, and not “judicial legislation”.
In 1995, Sir Patrick Neill2 published a paper “The European Court of Justice: A Case Study In Judicial Activism”3 in which he criticised the judgments in most of the cases discussed and some others, essentially on the grounds that the Court had failed to limit itself in one previous article, to the literal words of the Treaties. The force of his criticism, however, was greatly lessened by the one-sided and biased tone of the paper, and also for the following reasons:
• He did not refer to Article 31 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which provides that “a treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose” (emphasis supplied). The “context” comprises the text, “including its preamble and annexes”, and “any subsequent practice in the application of the treaty which establishes the agreement of the parties regarding its interpretation”. The preamble and objectives of the Treaty were well-known and far-reaching, and by 1995 when Neill
1 Temple Lang, Basic Principles of European Law Applying to National Courts, SvJT 2011 s. 129. 2 Then Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, now Lord Neill. 3 London, 1995, European Policy Forum.