Legislative Interpretation in the European Court of Justice

Abstract

Historically it may have been legitimate to characterize the principal distinction between common law and civil law styles of interpretation in terms of the contrast between simple literalism and purposivism. Also historically, the matter was of largely academic interest, since very few practitioners of English law would ever come across laws originating from civil law jurisdictions. However, the reception of Community law into English law has meant that the civil law style of interpretation as practised by the Court of Justice (which, for the present purposes, includes the Court of First Instance, as it did in Chapter 17), is now of immediately practical importance to English lawyers. As Lord Denning MR said in Bulmer (HP) Ltd v. Bollinger SA [1974] 2 All ER 1226: ‘It is apparent that in very many cases the English courts will interpret the Treaty themselves…. Beyond doubt the English courts must follow the same principles as the European court. Otherwise there would be differences between [the member states]… ‘ Perhaps fortunately, the English judiciary’s widespread conversion to purposive interpretation means that the gap between the two styles of interpretation has narrowed very considerably. Nevertheless, it is worth giving some attention to the Community law style of interpretation, and this chapter will do so. As a preliminary, however, it may be useful to offer some general observations on those characteristics of Community law which have the greatest influence on how it is interpreted.