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Supremacy – Lost? – Comment on Roman Kwiecień

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Franz C. Mayer

Abstract

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Type
Part I: General Questions
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 11: The Unity of the European Constitution: 2nd German-Polish Seminar on the Constitutional Law of the European Union , 01 November 2005 , pp. 1497 - 1505
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

2 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe, Art. I-5, 10 July, 2003, O.J. (C310): “The Constitution and law adopted by the institutions of the Union in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the Member States.”Google Scholar

3 Case 26/62, Van Gend en Loos, 1963 E.C.R. 1 (English special edition).Google Scholar

4 Case 6/64, Costa v. ENEL, 1964 E.C.R. 585 (English special edition).Google Scholar

5 Case 106/77, Simmenthal, 1978 E.C.R. 629, paras. 3 and 21 et seq.; See also Case C-213/89, Factortame, 1990 E.C.R. I-2433, paras. 20 et seq.Google Scholar

6 Case 11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, 1970 E.C.R. 1125, para. 3.Google Scholar

7 Case 11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, 1970 E.C.R. 1125, para. 3; Case C-473/93, Commission v Luxembourg, 1996 E.C.R. I-3207, para. 38. See also Case C-285/98, Kreil v. Germany, 2000 E.C.R. I-69.Google Scholar

8 Case 14/68, Walt Wilhelm, 1969 E.C.R. 1, para. 5 (English special edition). It appears as a keyword in a 1972 decision, Case 93/71, Leonesio, 1972 E.C.R. 287 (English special edition).Google Scholar

9 AG Jacobs in Case C-112/00, Schmidberger, 2003 E.C.R. I-5659, para. 5.Google Scholar

10 Case C-256/01, Allonby, 2004 E.C.R. I-873, para. 77 (13 Jan., 2004).Google Scholar

11 Decision K 18/04, 11 May 2005, in particular para. 11 and 13.Google Scholar

12 The Polish court claims, inter alia, the unconditional authority to examine European law, para. 23 of the decision. The German Court in 1974 also claimed such an authority – but under the condition of insufficient fundamental rights protection at the European level.Google Scholar

13 Judge Gerhardt, Decision 2 BvR 2236/04, 18 July 2005, at para. 189.Google Scholar

14 Here, it is the Polish Constitutional Tribunal that has been more conscious of European law obligations, deciding to delay the date of the loss of binding force of the unconstitutional implementation of the European arrest warrant in Poland for 18 months. Decision P 1/05, 27 April 2005.Google Scholar

15 See the preliminary procedure 2003/2161 for a treaty infringement case against Sweden.Google Scholar

16 See, e.g., Rupp, Hans-Heinrich, Die Grundrechte und das Europäische Gemeinschaftsrecht, Neue Juristische Wochenschrift 953 (1970). See also, Karen Alter, Establishing the Supremacy of European Law. The Making of an International Rule of Law in Europe, 88 et seq. (2001); for an account of how this article may have triggered subsequent developments such as the ECJ decision in Case 11/70, Internationale Handelsgesellschaft, 1970 ECR 1125, which openly claimed primacy of European law over national constitutions; and the BVerfG's fierce reaction to that in BverfGE 37, 271 (Solange I).Google Scholar

17 See the references in Pernthaler, Peter, Die Herrschaft der Richter im Recht ohne Staat, Juristische Blätter 691, 700 (2000).Google Scholar

18 Ronny Abraham, L'application des normes internationales en droit interne 155 (1986).Google Scholar

19 Id.Google Scholar

20 See, e.g., BVerfGE 89, 155 (Maastricht Treaty Constitutionality).Google Scholar

21 See, Mayer, Franz C., Competences – Reloaded? The Vertical Division of Powers in the EU after the New European Constitution, 3 The Journal of International Constitutional Law 493, 494 (2005); for a comparative view with the US in that respect see Franz C. Mayer, Kompetenzüberschreitung und letztentscheidung (2000).Google Scholar

22 Tribunal Constitucional, Case 6603/2004, Declaration 1/2004; Conseil constitutionnel, Decision 2004/505 DC, Traité établissant une Constitution pour l'Europe, 2004 Journal officiel No. 273 (24 november 2004), 19885. On the French decision, see, Franz C. Mayer, Europarecht als französisches Verfassungsrecht, Europarecht 925 (2004); on the Spanish decision, see, Anne C. Becker, Vorrang versus Vorherrschaft, Anmerkung zum Urteil des spanischen Tribunal Constitucional DTC 1/2004, Europarecht 353 (2005).Google Scholar

23 BVerfG 2 BvR 839/05 and 2 BvE 2/05 – Gauweiler, filed 27 May 2005, pending.Google Scholar

24 See, e.g., Lenaerts, Koen, Constitutionalism and the Many Faces of Federalism, 38 American Journal of Comparative Law 205, 220 (1990): “There simply is no nucleus of sovereignty that the Member States can invoke, as such, against the Community.”Google Scholar

25 In that context, see, the Verfassungsverbund approach (multilevel constitutionalism) established by Ingolf Pernice, e.g. in Multilevel Constitutionalism in the European Union, 5 European Law Review 511 (2002); for a French version, see, Ingolf Pernice and Franz C. Mayer, De la constitution composée de l'Europe, Revue Trimestrielle de Droit Européen 623 (2000).Google Scholar

26 See, e.g., Case K 18/04, 2005 (11 May, 2005), for the public international law of European integration view adopted by the Polish Constitutional Tribunal in its decision on Polish EU membership, to put it mildly, it is not very convincing.Google Scholar

27 See, Mayer, Franz C., Europa als Rechtsgemeinschaft, Europawissenschaft 429 (Gunnar Folke Schuppert et al. eds., 2005).Google Scholar

28 The following paragraph is elaborated in more detail in Mayer, Franz C., Europäische Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit. Gerichtliche Letztentscheidung im europäischen Mehrebenensystem, in Europäisches Verfassungsrecht 229 (Armin von Bogdandy ed., 2003); for an English version see Franz C. Mayer, The European Constitution and the Courts. Adjudicating Constitutional Law in a Multilevel System, in European Integration – The New German Scholarship, Jean Monnet Working Paper 9/03 (Armin von Bogdandy/Joseph H.H. Weiler eds., 2003), <http://www.jeanmonnetprogram.org/papers/03/ 030901.html>; see also Franz C. Mayer, The European Constitution and the Courts. Adjudicating constitutional law in a multilevel system, in European Constitutional Law (Armin von Bogdandy/Jürgen Bast eds., forthcoming).;+see+also+Franz+C.+Mayer,+The+European+Constitution+and+the+Courts.+Adjudicating+constitutional+law+in+a+multilevel+system,+in+European+Constitutional+Law+(Armin+von+Bogdandy/Jürgen+Bast+eds.,+forthcoming).>Google Scholar

29 For an overview, see, Diramuid Rossa Phelan, Revolt or Revolution 422 (1997).Google Scholar