From cooperation to collision: The ECJ’s Ajos ruling and the Danish Supreme Court’s refusal to comply

Abstract

The article analyses the Ajos case and seeks to explain what led the Danish Supreme Court to refuse to comply with the judgment of the ECJ. The reasoning of the ECJ and the Danish Supreme Court are examined from the points of view of, respectively, the EU legal order and Danish law. It is argued that the judgments of the ECJ and of the Danish Supreme Court are both legally sound and understandable when read from each courts’ legal perspective. However, regrettably, both courts failed in carrying out a judicial dialogue in the spirit of good faith. Instead, the preliminary reference procedure was used in a way that gradually built up tensions and ended in a clear clash. The article finally examines the significance of the lacunae that the case has left between Danish law and EU law