SUPREMACY OF EU LAW Flashcards
SUPREMACY OF EU LAW: Member states have sovereign legal systems. Supremacy eu law is what is exactly is more important which law is more important? Background: every member state within EU is a sovereign system can create its own laws and has it own legal system.
The EU legal system also has law making powers given to council, parliament and commission and we also have court of justice EU and the general court. There are two different legal systems in the operation at the same time so which one is supreme and has more jurisdiction.
Supremacy is that EU law would be supreme over national law within each member state. Principle supremacy, normally conflict between domestic/international law dealt with by the state concerned. This raises a significant constitutional problem (principle of supremacy) So we have various different consti systems that are integrated with the EU and we also have this idea of EU law being supreme.
Keep in mind that supremacy is not mentioned in the treaties, supremacy you can look into the treaties and search for reference into supremacy but there isn’t one, does this mean it is meant to be considered obvious? One of the keys things is that the EU law has been developed through CJEU case law, series of cases that supremacy of EU law has been recognized, not within treaties or secondary sources, because we have this court of justice jurisprudence we have a problem in relation to a conflict specifically when we consider national sovereignty.
Because EU law has created law and makes eu law override national law and whether nationals are sovereign or not or if the have been robbed of sovereignty. National members have their own legal system running in conjunction with eu law and raises important questions.
If we think about the United Kingdoms withdrawal from EU one of the key reason vote to leave was the principle of supremacy was that EU was making laws and UK wasn’t in charge of its own destiny. How exactly does supremacy EU law work? Van Gen den Loos Case 26/62 this case concerned conflict between dutch law and EU provision.
Van Gen den Loos Case 26/62: Court said union constitutes a new legal order in international law, court recognised EU law is supreme and by joining the EU you agreed t limited sovereignty in some capacity. Dutch law in case was you must pay customs and EU law was that it was not. Costa v ENEL (6/64) a law enacted by Italy after EU law was in place here the courts had to consider which takes precedents because normally laws created later take precedent. Court said any laws created that are incompatible with aims of the union cannot prevail of European union laws, and if member states did create after eu provision that does not override eu provision.
.International Handelsgesellschaft: case there was a conflict between the German and EU law, in domestic law constitutional law is supreme law is supreme in ordinary national laws but conflicting with EU law it was held that law comes from the treaties override national law.
COMPETENCE: EU cannot go beyond the powers it has conferred upon it. It is important to think about the role of the EU and what it can do. Role of EU is to create laws and regulations to achieve the aims. When you have an institution like the EU we need to think if it has unlimited power or limited.
Competence provides EU in, the EU has involved in time and objectives have changed over time. One thing to keep in my is that the European union has more than economical aspects to it, originally created for economic aims now this has changed over times and we now know there are political and social objectives which need to be achieved within the union.
Competence: Considering article 3 on the Treaty on European Union, paragraph 6 states that the union shall pursue its objectives by appropriate means… states that the union shall achieve these objectives and shall strive to do so. The power of EU is limited , limited to a specific amount and specific jurisdiction. Scope of competence, article 1 which states the treaty organises the functioning of the union and determines the areas of, idea here is that the treaty outlines when the EU has shared or exclusive competence and where it has no competence to act in certain areas. When there is exclusive competence only the union may legislate.
Competence: Idea of shared competence and when treaty outlines an area of shared then both the member states and euro union shall act. In summary keep in mind the EU has competence to act only in limited fields as outlined in articles 2-6.
SUBSIDIARITY AND PROPORTIONALITY: 2 concerns with EU: multiple levels of government/law making. Potential for EU to creep into areas of competence mainly through shared areas. Subsidiarity is concerned with there’s multiple levels of law making and potential for EU to creep into competence which is mainly shared area. Proportionality, to achieve the aims of the EU it will only take actions it needs to and wont action on excess that it needs to.
SUBSIDIARITY AND PROPORTIONALITY: Proportionality applies to all provisions within the European Union, see this in free movement of goods. Allows general outline laws to be made by EU. We will consider this in relation to movement of persons. These principles are important because they establish the ground rules between national law and EU law, EU law is far more involved and detailed than any other form of international law.
