INTRODUCTION

This chapter considers the authority of EU law. It is organised as follows.

Section 2 considers the claims by the Court of Justice that sovereignty is vested in the Treaties. This places ultimate legal authority in the Treaties and makes the Court of Justice the ultimate arbiter on the meaning and consequences of this authority. This has been given limited recognition by the national governments in a Declaration attached to the Treaty of Lisbon.

Section 3 considers the implications of these claims not being fully accepted by any national constitutional court. Whilst willing to grant the Treaties significant legal authority, all see their domestic constitutions, or some part of them, as sovereign. The authority of EU law rests, therefore, in the extent to which the claims of the Court of Justice are accepted by national constitutional courts and the principles on which the latter accept it. Instead of discussing sovereignty in abstract terms of whether EU law or domestic law is sovereign, it makes better sense to consider the extent to which the four different doctrines emanating from the sovereignty of EU law have been accepted.

Section 4 considers the first of these doctrines: the precedence of EU law over all national law, including national constitutions. There is almost no instance of a national constitutional court explicitly giving priority to a national law over EU law.