Publication details
Judicial Reasoning and Judicial Dialogue: The Application of EU law by National Civil Courts
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| Year of publication | 2014 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
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| Description | Integration of the Czech Republic into the European Union brought profound changes both for national legal order and judiciary. Principles of direct effect and primacy of EU law contributed to the change of general position of international law within the Constitution. However, while we can observe gradual strengthening of judicial interaction between domestic and international courts, EU law still enjoys special position as courts are obliged to refer and interpret its provisions as well as CJEU case law under the requirements of a right to a fair trial. Furthermore, institute of preliminary ruling and CILFIT criteria require national judges to use comparative law more frequently as a means to strengthen the validity of their reasoning when interpreting provision derived from EU law. For several years, International Department of the Supreme Court engages with the analysis of application of the EU law and the comprehension of the shape of judicial dialogue (or judicial interaction) between the Czech civil courts and European Court of Justice. In order to fulfil this objective a database of national decisions applying the EU law and CJEU case law has been developed. The database records frequency of citation of treaties, regulations and directives in particular EU policies, references on CJEU cases and decisions of other foreign courts. The dataset enables to determine both quantity and quality of EU law application by domestic courts of different instances. The following presentation focuses on the quality of judicial reasoning in domestic decisions applying the EU law. We aim to address the following questions: 1) Frequency of citations of EU law and CJEU case law: Is there a gradual increase in such citations? When do the courts resort to such references? 2) Is there a general observable trend in the approach of domestic civil courts to CJEU case law and EU law? Are there any differences between the quality of reasoning of the Supreme court and lower instances? We seek to answer, whether the national courts actively transform their doctrines in compliance with the interpretation developed by the CJEU (while directly referring to its particular relevant case law), passively implement the necessary minimum (in case of retrial after complaint of individual/preliminary question) but do not change their doctrines significantly and do not push forward more progressive change, or if they approach the EU law negatively and explicitly refuse to adhere to CJEU – either by ignorance or explicit refusal of its case law. |