European Court of Justice Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

European Court of Justice - Essay Example This case was a landmark in the history of the ECJ and the conclusion drawn was "the Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields, and the subjects of which comprise not only Member States but also their nationals". The ECJ also held that either an individual or a firm can depend on the provisos of the accords against the national government and its rights are enforceable in a domestic court. The legal footing for the conclusion in Van Gend en Loos is very disputable. The Court interpreted Article 12 as meaning to bestow rights on individuals. The Court cited the Preamble, which mentions citizens and also States, and to the introductory indication system in Article 177 (which is now Article 234). This very clearly predicts that parties can bring up queries of Community law in the national courts. Actually here the general wording of the EC accord can be interpreted as one that inflicts direct effect and develops personal rights to be protected by the national courts.2 The court had implemented and elaborated direct outcome to include secondary legislation, especially the directives (Miriam Lenz, et al 2000, p.509). In fact the court had actually stated that the impact of a directive "would be weakened if individuals were prevented from relying on it before national courts and if the latter were prevented from taking it into consideration as an element of Community law."3 It is clear that the conception of direct consequence is one of the most essential legal doctrines created by ECJ (Prinssen and Schrauwen, 2002). The loyalty principle stated that the Member States had to obey their principles.4 As a result the national courts had a duty based on the principle of supremacy to give priority to community law when a disagreement arose with national law. Under these circumstances the community law would have to be applied directly in a legal challenge. Thus the effet utile, of EC law as a result called for the national courts to enforce community law in the circumstances where it was appropriate (Paul, and Grainne, 2003). This adaptation of the Court that a proviso of a directive has the capacity of being dependent even in legal proceedings amid individual parties has in reality blurred the inhibition of the horizontal direct outcome of directives. Fundamental policy The primary policy rationale for rejection of horizontal direct impact of Directives in Marshall5 was only a textual controversy. The ECJ adjudged that a Directive cannot be dependent against an individual since, "according to Article [249] of the EEC Treaty, the binding nature of a directive, which constitutes the basis for the possibility of relying on the directive before a national Court, exists only in relation to 'each Member State to which it is addressed"'6 The ECJ further states that "a directive may not of itself impose obligations on an individual and that a provision of a directive may not be relied upon as such against such a person". This conclusion formed the basis for succeeding case law. On close scrutiny three important problems can be reasoned out. A.G. Jacobs in Vaneetveld v Le Foyer SA7 stated that the approach as laid down by ECJ is difficult to resolve with the judicial interpretation to certain Treaty as also openly directed to the Member State. Thus in the Defrenne case8 the