'A Union Founded on the Rule of Law': Meaning and Reality of the Rule of Law as a Constitutional Principle of EU Law
European Constitutional Law Review, Vol. 6, pp. 359-396, 2010
38 Pages Posted: 21 Jan 2011 Last revised: 21 Jun 2011
Date Written: July 14, 2010
Abstract
This article examines the substance and scope of this constitutional principle before subjecting the EU’s constitutional framework to 'a rule of law audit.' It will first be shown that the EU constitutional principle of the rule of law is, to paraphrase Lord Bingham, no meaningless verbiage. Not only has the rule of law unsurprisingly become one of the defining principles undergirding the Union’s constitutional system, but the EU courts have correctly understood it as a multifaceted legal principle, with formal and substantive elements, and whose normative impact should not be underestimated. The fact that the EU rule of law is no hollow slogan, however, does not necessarily imply that there is no gap between rhetoric and practice. Adopting the Court of Justice’s understanding of the rule of law as a benchmark, this article will propose that the post-Maastricht Union’s constitutional framework illustrated a serious ‘rule of law deficit’ that has been considerably remedied by a set of long-awaited reforms contained in the 2007 Lisbon Treaty.
Keywords: Rule of Law, Constitutional Principle, European Union
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