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Activation of the Ultra Vires Review: The Slovak Pensions Judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Georgios Anagnostaras

Extract

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It is now almost two decades since the German Constitutional Court proclaimed in Maastricht its capacity to review whether the Union institutions respect the limits of their conferred competences and to pronounce inapplicable at national level all legal instruments adopted by them in transgression of these boundaries. This ultra vires doctrine inspired the case law of several other constitutional courts, which announced their intention to operate in exceptional circumstances as an ultima ratio against the violation by the Union institutions of the principle of conferral. The German Constitutional Court itself emphatically reaffirmed on various occasions its role as the ultimate protector of constitutionality against the ultra vires introduction and interpretation of Union law, most prominently in its eminent Lisbon ruling. Until recently though, there was no actual precedent of a national court proclaiming a Union act as ultra vires. Even when a constitutional court reviewed the contested act on ultra vires grounds, it eventually concluded that it complied with the principle of conferred powers.

Type
Developments
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 14 , Issue 7 , 01 July 2013 , pp. 959 - 973
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

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10 Judgment III, ÚS 1012/10 of 12 August 2010 of the Czech Constitutional Court.Google Scholar

11 Landtová, supra note 6, at paras. 41–49.Google Scholar

12 Id. at para. 51.Google Scholar

13 Id. at paras. 52–54.Google Scholar

14 Decision of the Supreme Administrative Court of 25th August 2011, File No. 3 Ads 130/2008-204. The ruling, in Czech, is available at: http://www.nssoud.cz/files/SOUDNI_VYKON/2008/0130_3Ads_08_20110831084552_prevedeno.pdf (last accessed: 27 June 2013).Google Scholar

15 §106a of Act No. 155/1995 Coll., as amended by Act No. 428/2011 Coll.Google Scholar

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18 Annex III of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, supra note 8.Google Scholar

19 Articles 6 and 7 (2) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, supra note 8.Google Scholar

20 Part A and Part B of Annex III of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, supra note 8.Google Scholar

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22 Article 3 (3) of Regulation (EEC) No 1408/71, supra note 8.Google Scholar

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30 Id. at para. 60.Google Scholar

31 Id. at para. 61.Google Scholar

32 Id. at paras.75-79.Google Scholar

33 Id. at paras. 101–103.Google Scholar

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39 Id. at paras. 18–27.Google Scholar

40 Mangold, supra note 28, at paras. 74–78. Very interestingly, some of these critical comments came from the very Advocates General of the Court who warned it not to contest without the existence of an explicit legal basis the political choices made by the national legislatures within the limits of their retains powers. See in this respect the Opinion of Advocate General Geelhoed in Case C- 13/05 Sonia Chacón Navas v Eurest Colectividades SA, [2006] E.C.R. I-6467 at paras. 52–55; the Opinion of Advocate General Mazák in Case C-411/05 Felix Palacios de la Villa v Cortefiel Servicios SA, [2007] E.C.R. I-8531 at paras. 58–59 and 89–97; and the Opinion of Advocate General Colomer in Cases C-55/07 & C-56/07 Michaeler and others v Amt für sozialen Arbeitsschutz Autonome Provinz Bozen, [2008] E.C.R. I-3135 at paras. 21–22.Google Scholar

41 Honeywell, supra note 3.Google Scholar

42 Lisbon, supra note 3.Google Scholar

43 Honeywell, supra note 3.Google Scholar

44 This presupposes of course that the reference will be considered admissible, notwithstanding the complete ban on the future award of the social security supplement currently imposed by Czech law. This law continues to be applicable, since the position of the Constitutional Court that its provisions became obsolete was obiter dictum. Google Scholar

45 See particularly in this respect, Arthur Dyevre, Judicial Non-Compliance in a Non-Hierarchical Legal Order: Isolated Accident or Omen of Judicial Armageddon?, available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2084639 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2084639 (last accessed: 27 June 2013).Google Scholar

46 The Constitutional Court attempted to intervene in the Landtová proceedings, supra note 6, by a written statement, in which it expressed the expectation that in order to preserve the appearance of objectivity the Court of Justice would familiarize itself with the arguments that respected the case law of the Constitutional Court and the constitutional identity of the Czech Republic. However, this statement was considered as inadmissible, as it came from a third party which was not officially involved in the proceedings. The Constitutional Court considered that this constituted a violation of the principle audiatur et altera pars (“hear the other party too.”)Google Scholar

47 Two preliminary references were made recently by the Spanish Constitutional Court in Case C-399/11 Criminal Proceedings against Stefano Melloni, O.J. 2011 C 290/5, and the Belgian Constitutional Court in Case C-197/2011 Eric Libert and Others v Flemish Government, O.J. 2011 C 211/13. Both cases are currently pending.Google Scholar