155
Troisième séance de travail — Les perspectives
Third working session — The future prospects
Fundamental Rights and
the Relationship among the
Court of Justice, the National
Supreme Courts and the
Strasbourg Court
Marta Cartabia
PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MILANO-BICOCCA
JUDGE AT THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF ITALY
1. One of the protagonists of the
Van Gend en Loos
case, professor and
judge Alberto Trabucchi (
1
), defined Van Gend as one of the ‘cornerstones’
of the new Europe, which brought a ‘new legal experience’ into existence in
the European continent. Indeed, Van Gend was the first step of a ‘soft revolu-
tion’ that incrementally fashioned a new legal framework, distinct from that
of other international organisations.
But what was the origin of those innovative legal solutions?
The extraordinary legal creativity of that decision was rooted in the urge
– repeatedly expressed by Trabucchi in many occasions – to grant individu-
als, nationals and peoples central place in the construction of the European
Community. The focus of his concerns was the individual – the human per-
son, as he would have said – and his/her rights; the rest, including the idea
of the European Community as a ‘new legal order’, the principle of ‘direct
effect’ of Community legal provisions and the powers granted to national
judges as Community judges, was but a consequence of this primary concern.
(
1
) According to M. Rasmussen,
Establishing a Constitutional Practice of European Law: The
History of the Legal Service of the European Executive, 1952-1965,
in
Contemporary European
History,
2012, pp. 375-397, ‘the Italian professor of private law Alberto Trabucchi and the
French Christian Democrat politician Robert Lecour – apparently changed the balance
inside the ECJ’.
INTERVENTIONS ◊
INTERVENTIONS
