Book Review on Suvi Sankari, European Court of Justice Legal Reasoning in Context

Abstract

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has frequently and continuously been criticized for lacking a sound legal methodology or for engaging in 'judicial activism' and thereby turning into a (non-majoritarian) quasi-political actor. Yet, the lines between law and politics have always been blurry and managing the overlap between law and politics may be more difficult in transnational than in national, more homogeneous contexts.

There are several ways of dealing with 'the political' in law. Political and social sciences address external forces impacting on the law. Their approach differs from the perspective of legal theory and legal philosophy that, in contrast to the former, offer an internal perspective upon the law. Suvi Sankari, now a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence 'The Foundations of European Law and Polity', Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki, has just published an adapted and condensed version of her doctoral thesis on the legal reasoning of the CJEU with particular emphasis on EU citizenship case-law.

Keywords: European Union, Legal theory, interpretation, judicial activism, EU citizenship