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Catherine Barnard
Deuxième séance de travail — Les retombées
However, judicial abstinence provides litigants with no mechanism of
complaint if their voice is not heard through the traditional political chan-
nels. And it leaves the uncomfortable impression that the Court is reneging
on its key function, first articulated in
Van Gend en Loos,
that EU law must
be effective.
Conclusions
The discussion so far suggests that the challenges facing the Court require
nuance, subtlety and sophistication.
Van Gend en Loos
was a big bang, a mon-
umental decision to kick-start the EU’s new legal order. It was a decision of its
time in the face of a simpler world. The EU of 2013 is infinitely more complex
and any solutions will have to reflect that. There will be no
Van Gend en Loos
II.
However, this does not mean the end of the Court of Justice and its influ-
ence. Quite the contrary. It means a repositioning of the Court from standard
bearer of EU integration to ensuring that the EU is able to function in its new,
more fragmented reality. This paves the way for the Court to develop a new
kind of doctrine of effectiveness, one that might mean endorsing the devolu-
tion of more decision-making power to the Member States or other actors.
This will not turn the European Court of Justice into the US Supreme Court
but it will ensure continued respect for the rule of law in an increasingly het-
erogeneous legal and political environment. This would be a sign of strength,
not weakness, in the EU’s evolving legal order.
