15
General introduction
The symbiotic relationship works also in the opposite direction. The
European Court ‘needs’ the national courts not only to ‘activate’ and initiate
the European norm. But also for the compliance pull issue. When, for exam-
ple, the august World Court in the Hague issues a decision against this or that
State, it is not uncommon for the condemned State to ‘study the decision’ and
then quietly to disregard it. The World Court, indeed, the international legal
order, has limited enforcement mechanisms. By contrast, in most Western de-
mocracies, when a domestic court issues a decision against the government,
the latter may appeal that decision, but the option of non-compliance is absent
or very limited. This is not, principally, because of an army which stands at
the service of national courts, but because of a much deeper ‘habit of obedi-
ence’ which national law and domestic courts enjoy when compared to their
international counterparts. What I am describing here is the notorious and
seemingly paradoxical difference in the compliance pull of domestic and in-
ternational tribunals and courts.
What is of huge significance in the European system, is that the conflu-
ence of Direct Effect and the Preliminary Reference system means that the
European Court will articulate the content and contours of the applicable
European norm, but it will be the national court which will actually mouth it
in the specific case giving the directly effective European norm all the compli-
ance pull which is attached to domestic courts. Even the living word of God
is but a cry in the desert if Man does not actuate it, apply it, and abide by it.
It will, thus, also be noticed, that
Van Gend en Loos
standing as a proxy for
Direct Effect, Supremacy and the Preliminary Reference system, did not only
put the individual in the centre but also the European Court of Justice and the
judicial branch more generally.
Van Gend en Loos
was, thus, the cornerstone of this multifaceted legal or-
der – the reality of which was not simply in determining legal rules for the re-
lationship between Union law and Member State law, but has to be explained,
as we have seen, in economic, social and, above all, political terms.
II. The Challenge of
Van Gend en Loos
Conceptually, Direct Effect has one additional hugely important signifi-
cance which I have not articulated until now: It is a proxy for Governance.
The fact that the writ of Union law runs through the land, that European Law
is the law of the land, also can be expressed that the Union is a system of
