At the heart of the European Union is the establishment of a European
market grounded in the free movement of people, goods, services, and
capital. The implementation of the free market has preoccupied
European lawyers since the inception of the Union's predecessors.
Throughout the Union's development, as obstacles to free movement have
been challenged in the courts, the European Court of Justice has had
to expand on the internal market provisions in the founding Treaties
to create a body of law determining the scope and meaning of the EU
protection of free movement. In doing so, the Court has often taken
differing approaches across the different freedoms, leaving a body of
law apparently lacking a coherent set of foundational principles. This
book presents a critical analysis of the European Courts'
jurisprudence on free movement, examining the Court's constitutional
responsibility to articulate a coherent vision of the EU internal
market. Through analysis of restrictions on free movement rights, it
argues that four main drivers are distorting the system of the case
law and its claims to coherence. The drivers reflect 'good' impulses
(the protection of fundamental rights); avoidable habits (the
proliferation of principles and conflicting lines of case law
authority); inherent ambiguities (the unsettled purpose and objectives
of the internal market); and broader systemic conditions (the
structure of the Court and its decision-making processes). These
dynamics cause problematic instances of case law fragmentation - which
has substantive implications for citizens, businesses, and Member
States participating in the internal market as well as reputational
consequences for the Court of Justice and for the EU more generally.
However, ultimately the Member States must take greater responsibility
too: only they can ensure that the Court of Justice is properly
structured and supported, enabling it to play its critical
institutional part in the complex narrative of EU integration.
Examining the judicial development of principles that define the scope
of EU free movement law, this book argues that sustaining case law
coherence is a vital constitutional responsibility of the Court of
Justice. The idea of constitutional responsibility draws from the
nature of the duties that a higher court owes to a constitutional text
and to constitutional subjects. It is based on values of fairness,
integrity, and imagination. A paradigm of case law coherence is less
rigid, and therefore more realistic, than a benchmark of legal
certainty. But it still takes seriously the Court's obligations as a
high-level judicial institution bound by the rule of law. Judges can
legitimately be expected - and obliged - to be aware of the public
legal resource that they construct through the evolution of case law.
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Constitutional Responsibility and the Court of Justice
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780191511066
Publisert
2020
Utgiver
Vendor
OUP Oxford
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter