9 - Judge Biographies as a Methodology to Grasp the Dynamics inside the CJEU and Its Relationship with EU Member States

Summary

This chapter shows how biographical research can lead us to better understand the legal and political dynamics that prevailed in the court during the 1960s and 1970s. The chapter presents an innovative use of biographies in the sense that they are not a goal in themselves, but a means to create primary sources to study the court's institutional behaviour and its power struggle with national governments. This biographical methodology uncovered that the bench of judges which ‘revolutionized’ European law in the 1960s and 1970s was not as isolated and apolitical as existing literature had portrayed as so far. The judges could rely on a vast political network, which not only helped them in assessing how far they could push the integration process further in their rulings, but which was also useful when it came to persuading national decision-makers of the fact that the court’s rulings were in their interest. The chapter further addresses the challenges raised by the biographical approach and gives an account of the research strategies adopted to unearth empirical material on mostly unknown judges coming from different national, legal and professional backgrounds.