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Balancing competences: How institutional cosmopolitanism can manage jurisdictional conflicts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2015

MATTHIAS KLATT
MATTHIAS KLATT*
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg, Rothenbaumchaussee 33, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
*
*Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

Conflicts of competences are ubiquitous in law. They represent a serious challenge, in particular, to global constitutionalism and institutional cosmopolitanism. This article argues from a participant’s perspective, following a normative-analytical approach. It develops new taxonomy of competence conflicts. In essence it defends a flexible legal solution to competence conflicts that is inspired by the idea of practical institutional concordance and provides a middle way between strict legal solutions and political appeals for dialogue. Legal authority beyond the state and competence admit of degrees and variability, depending on the legal and factual circumstances of the case at issue. This understanding is enabled by interpreting competences as formal principles. Drawing on research by Alexy and Kumm the details of balancing competences as a distinct legal method are elaborated, using a triadic scale and various factors for determining the concrete weight of a competence. The theory of balancing competences is then applied to the example of competence conflicts in the multilevel system of fundamental rights protection in the EU. In result, a universal but case-sensitive theory is presented that optimally combines flexibility and stability and allows for a pluralist understanding of sovereignty. Institutional cosmopolitanism is thus defended against sceptical pluralism.

Keywords

balancingcompetenceEU constitutional lawformal principlespluralism
Type
Research Article
Information
Global Constitutionalism , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , July 2015 , pp. 195 - 226
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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115 Supreme Court UK, R (on the application of Nicklinson and another) (Appellants) v Ministry of Justice (Respondent), R (on the application of AM) (AP) (Respondent) v The Director of Public Prosecutions (Appellant) UKSC 38 (25 June 2014) at para 75: ‘must depend on all the circumstances’; cf rule J9 in Alexy (n 94) 250.

116 Cf Alexy, A Theory of Constitutional Rights (n 80) 346. The list of factors employed in this article is not conclusive. In national constitutional orders, e.g., the nature of the issue at stake is also deemed relevant. The more the case relates to controversial issues of social policy or contested moral or religious questions, the higher is the weight of Parliament’s assessment, cf Supreme Court UK, R (on the application of Nicklinson and another) (Appellants) v Ministry of Justice (Respondent), R (on the application of AM) (AP) (Respondent) v The Director of Public Prosecutions (Appellant) UKSC 38 (25 June 2014) at 297, but see ibid, 191.

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118 Avbelj (n 53) 750 (original emphasis).

119 Mayer, Multilevel Constitutional Jurisdiction (n 31) 434.

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123 Kumm (n 10) 299–300.

124 BVerfGE 37, 271 at para 26.

125 BVerfGE 73, 339 at para 103: ‘particularly through the decisions of the European Court’.

126 BVerfGE 37, 271 at para 26.

127 BVerfGE 102, 147 para 63 (emphasis added). The unofficial English translation, available at the website of the FCC, is incorrect since it continues with ‘in the in respective case’ (para 39 in the English translation). This case-relatedness is, however, clearly not intended by the FCC.

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129 Cf ibid ‘unlikely that this admissibility threshold may ever be passed’.

130 A von Bogdandy et al., ‘Reverse Solange’ (2012) 49 Common Market Law Review 489, 508.

131 Ibid 508–9.

132 Ibid 493–94.

133 Ibid 513.

134 BVerfGE 125, 60.

135 Cf Möllers (n 120) 162.

136 BVerfGE 125, 60 at para 182.

137 Ibid para 241.

138 Cf ECJ, Ireland v Parliament and Council, ECR I-00593 (10 February 2009).

139 Bossuyt and Verrijdt (n 26) 384.

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