The uniform application of Community Law

The uniform drill of conjunction Law name The uniform application of Community impartiality can nalways be achieved because it is too easy for national motor hotels to decide important points of Community honor for themselves. Critically evaluate the preceding(prenominal) statement.IntroductionGiven that the European jointure of 2006 consists of 25 different states, which operate downstairs (more than)1 25 different jural systems and court structures based on different heritages and subject to different political and socio-economic pressures it is certainly appropriate to concede that the uniform application of Community integrityfulness is a tall nine. That said however, in impartiality it is always insecure to use the word neer.Supremacy of EC LawIt is first cost making the point that all forms of EC truth prevail oer all forms national law. crusades such as Van Gend en Loos2 and costa v ENEL3 gave the European appeal of justice the opportunity to make this ab original principle clear in the early days of the EEC in the 1960s. The sovereignty of EC law, now largely accepted by courts nearly the EC, underpins the Communitys pursuit of the goal of uniform application. As substantiate by grammatical cases such as Defrenne v Sabena4 the principle of direct solution operates alongside the supremacy rule to facilitate and encourage the uniform application of EC law in the courts of the component states. bind 234 EC condition 234 of the Treaty of capital of Italy sets down a procedure vital to the consistent application of Community law. The Article providesThe Court of intelligent expert shall have jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning(a) the interpretation of this Treaty(b) the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions of the Community and of the ECB(c) the interpretation of the statues of bodies established by an act of Council, where those statutes so provide.Where such a interrogatory is raised before a ny court or judicatory of a Member State, that court or tribunal may, if it considers that a ratiocination on the question is necessary to enable it to give judgment, request the Court of Justice to give a ruling on that pointon.Where any such question is raised in a case pending before a court or tribunal of a Member State against whose decisions there is no discriminative remedy under national law, that court or tribunal shall bring the matter before the Court of Justice.First, it is clear from the above that national courts do non possess the jurisdiction to rule on the validity of acts of the EC institutions. As Foto-Frost v Hauptzollampt5 confirms, all such questions moldiness be referred to the Court of Justice and it is argued that this goes some way to ensure the harmonical application of EC law in the member states.The Article 234 tool ensures that ambiguous questions of EU law can be referred to the Court of Justice for an authoritative dissolvent and its importanc e in the EC legal order is hard to overstate. Clearly without such a procedure the courts of the different member states could and almost certainly would resolve issues of EU law slightly and perhaps sometimes wildly differently. Article 234 allows questions to be referred from the lower courts of the member states at the discretion of those courts and importantly it imposes a mandatory duty on the tyrannical courts in each member state to refer questions of EU law to the European Court. In theory this procedure ensures that EU law is both interpreted and applied in a uniform manner across the Community.The duty imposed on courts of the last resort to refer questions of EU law to the Court of Justice is obviously important, because there is no come along national appeal from such courts. The duty was confirmed inter alia, in the case Gaston Schul6.The CILFIT ruling7 stipulated that the duty to refer under what is now Article 2348 did not apply where(a) the question of EU law is not rele traint to the domestic proceedings(b) the provision has already been interpreted by the Court of Justice and the answer is clear take down though the circumstances of the current case may not be identical(c) the correct interpretation of the law is so obvious as to leave no room for comely doubt.In the early days of the EEC, when the national courts of the member states were still fight with the notion of a supreme Community law, many decisions in the UK and other(a) member states such as Germany and Italy indicated a more lax betterment to the use of what is now the Article 234 procedure. In HP Bulmer Ltd V Bollinger SA9 sea captain Denning suggested a reference would only be necessary if it was deemed to be determinate to a judgment. Such cases do not represent the law today, having been undermined by the definitive CILFIT ruling, which has been endorsed and applied in many subsequent rulings Intermodal Transports BV v Staatssecretaris van Financin.10It should also be noted that the European Courts sensitiveness towards contextual and purposive interpretation designed to buttress and sometimes even proactively increase the efficacy of EC law is readily app bent in this field. In Broekmeulen v Huisarts Registratie Commissie11 the question was whether the appeal committee of a medical exam body constituted a court or tribunal under the terms of Article 234. The Court of Justice held that it was imperative to ensure the right-hand(a) functioning of Community law that it should get the opportunity to rule on references from as many forms of body as attainable and thus include the committee in question within the notional ambit of court or tribunal in the context of Article 234. This general judicial policy, if consistently pursued, bodes well for the harmonious application of Community law.Concluding CommentsIt is submitted that to bring up that the uniform application of Community law can never be achieved because it is too easy for nationa l courts to decide important points of Community law for themselves is an unduly negative stance to take. It is undeniably difficult to achieve the suddenly uniform application of Community law in the circumstances in which the EU finds itself, and doubtless as the boundaries of the Union extend, both in geographical and legislative terms, the task of ensuring uniform application leave become ever more exacting. However, the legislative mechanisms to guarantee the consistent application of Community law are in place and the Court of Justice has proved itself commit to the role of policing the application of EU law and enthusiastic in the intent of that end. Inevitably teething troubles will persist as legal systems are slow to adapt to change and generally resistant to external see the light but as each year passes it is predicted that Community law will enjoy more consistent interpretation and application on the foundations of soused jurisprudence delivered by the European C ourt. Perfect uniformity may never be achieved, but then where in life is perfection possible? Effective uniformity is an achievable end, and it is submitted that EU law will in time achieve this.THE END WORD COUNT 1132 (word count for answer only exceeded word limit to account only for the reproduction of Article 234 in full)BIBLIOGRAPHYCraig De Burca, EU law Text, Cases and Materials (Oxford University Press 2003)Steiner Woods, Textbook on EC Law (Oxford University Press 2003)Stephen Weatherill, Cases and Materials on EU Law, (Oxford University Press 2004)Treaty of Rome (as amended)1Footnotes1 For example in the United Kingdom distinct legal systems operate in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.2 Case 26/62.3 Case 6/64.4 Case 43/75.5 Case 314/85.6 C-461/03.7 Case 283/81.8 Formerly Article 177 EC.9 1974 Ch 401.10 Case C-495/03.11 Case 246/80.