Constitutional Courts in Central Europe - Democracy - European Union

50 Pages Posted: 26 Nov 2006

See all articles by Wojciech Sadurski

Wojciech Sadurski

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law

Abstract

Soon after the accession of eight post-communist States from Central and Eastern Europe to the EU, the constitutional courts of some of these countries questioned the principle of supremacy of EU law over national constitutional systems, on the basis of their being the guardians of national standards of protection of human rights and of democratic principles. In doing so, they entered into the well-known pattern of behaviour favoured by a number of constitutional courts of the "older Europe", which is called a "Solange story" for the purposes of this article. But this resistance is ridden with paradoxes, the most important of which is a democracy paradox: while accession to the EU was supposed to be the most stable guarantee for human rights and democracy in post-communist States, how can the supremacy of EU law be now resisted on these very grounds? It is argued that the sources of these constitutional courts' adherence to the "Solange" pattern are primarily domestic, and that it is a way of strengthening their position vis-à-vis other national political actors, especially at a time when the role and independence of those courts face serious domestic challenges.

Keywords: Constitutional courts, European Union, Solange story, Community law

JEL Classification: K33, K10, K30

Suggested Citation

Sadurski, Wojciech, Constitutional Courts in Central Europe - Democracy - European Union. Sydney Law School Research Paper No. 06/54, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=947031 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.947031

Wojciech Sadurski (Contact Author)

The University of Sydney - Faculty of Law ( email )

New Law Building, F10
The University of Sydney
Sydney, NSW 2006
Australia

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