Supremacy and Direct Effect of European Community Law Reconsidered, or the Use and Abuse of Political Science for Jurisprudence

Abstract

Karen Alter's book is not intended to be a legal study of the European legal system. Rather, it is written from the vantage point of political science [xi]. From this perspective, the book traces the process by which two doctrines, developed by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) at the beginning of the 1960s, were more or less accepted by the judiciaries of the Member States of the European Community, and by national governments. The first of these doctrines is that of the supremacy of European Community law (or, as the author says with slight imprecision, 'European law'). This doctrine holds that in case, and to the extent, of irreconcilable results in the application of both legal systems to the same situation, the conflicting national law of the Member States becomes inapplicable. According to the second doctrine, provisions of European law can have direct effect. This means that they can in certain circumstances be pleaded by individuals as sources of rights, and enforced by the same individuals in the legal systems of the Member States. Two Member States, Germany and France, serve as contrasting examples of the process of acceptance of these doctrines. The book has six chapters, the third and fourth of which look at the German and French judiciary, the fifth at the acceptance of the two doctrines by these Member States' governments. The first two chapters, and the last one, respectively, lay out the theoretical framework for the two country surveys, and reflect on the lessons to be drawn from these two particular cases. This scholarly volume is most carefully researched and argued, and the author shows an admirable insight into the two national legal cultures which are the subject of her study. The book is also largely free from jargon, be it taken from political sciences, or from the law; only on very few occasions does one 'neo .. .-ism' battle it out with