1 - Introduction

Summary

The introduction of the book has two purposes. First, it explains why a normative theory of ECJ procedural and organisational law is needed. It puts forward three reasons: first, procedural and organisational design involves making important choices on the role of courts in society; second, the dominant normative approach to assessing the ECJ’s work, namely the focus on its methods of interpretation, faces a number of conceptual problems; and third, ECJ judicial reform is of great practical relevance and requires normative anchoring. Secondly, the introduction explains the empirical strategies the book pursues to investigate the ECJ’s inner workings. In particular, it explains how requests for access to adminstrative documents and statistical analysis is used in the book to get a better understanding how the ECJ’s procedural and organisational rules are applied in practice. Finally, the introduction summarises the core of the book’s argument.