EU Supremacy Flashcards
Van Gend En Loos
- Claimant was importing chemicals into Netherlands
- Was subsequently charged customs
- Ran contrary to free movement of goods
- Established EU supremacy
- ‘the EU constitutes a new legal order of international law’
Costa v ENEL
- Claimants held shares in an electricity company that became nationalised by the Italian government
- Objected to nationalisation Italian Company
- They said that the decision to nationalise the company was in violation of various provisions in the Treaty of Rome
- Italy argued that they were under an obligation to apply the laws of their jurisdiction, not the EU law
- EU law was held to trump national law
Internationale Handelsgesellschaft
Point Decided: EU law prevails over conflicting rule of national constitution
Simmenthal
- Conflict between a treaty provision and Italian national law
- National court was unsure whether it had to give priority to the EU law straight away or wait until its own constitutional law was changed
- Held EU law applied irrespective of whether the EU law post or pre-dated the national law
- EU law must be applied on the date it is enforced
Factortame
- Claim before the English courts by a group of Spanish fishermen for an interim injunction to prevent the application of certain sections of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 which denied them the right to register their boats in the UK
- Claimed the denial was based on nationality
- Held violation of Community law
- Established that national law was to be disapplied
Minister for Justice and Equality v Workplace Relations Commission
- Age restriction for entrance into An Garda Siochana
- Irish policy but against EU Directive
- National law disapplied
Filipiak v Dyrektor
- A national court must respect primacy of EU law and set aside national law even though its national constitutional court had deferred the date for such national law to lose its binding nature
Ciola
Any provisional national law that conflicts with directly effective EU law should not be applied
Pigs and Bacon Commission v McCarren
- Union law requires ‘that it takes effect in the Irish Legal system in the manner in which it itself provides’
SPUC v Grogan
‘it cannot be one of the objectives of the European Communities that a Member State should be obliged to permit activities which are clearly designed to set at nought the constitutional guarantee for the protection within the State of a fundamental right’
Smoules
CE (Counsil d’Etaits) refused that it had competence to question validity of French legislation in breach of EU law
