Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-wzw2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-01T02:07:16.001Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Simmenthal, 1978

Obligations of “Lower” National Courts

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2020

William Phelan
Affiliation:
Trinity College Dublin
Get access

Summary

This chapter discusses the Court’s 1978 judgment, Simmenthal, where the Court declared that all national courts – including ‘lower’ national courts – were under an obligation to apply European law in place of contrary national legal obligations, even if national constitutional rules restricted such powers to the national constitutional court. This judgment is often understood as an important one in the ‘politics of judges’ within the European legal order, reflecting the Court of Justice’s efforts to develop more active cooperation with ‘lower’ national courts than with national constitutional courts. This chapter demonstrates that the logic of Simmenthal is also derived from the use of national courts to enforce treaty obligations as a substitute for inter-state retaliation, as demonstrated by similar aspects of the enforcement provisions of the Side Agreements of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Type
Chapter
Information
Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice
Rethinking the Landmark Decisions of the Foundational Period
, pp. 171 - 184
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

  • Simmenthal, 1978
  • William Phelan, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice
  • Online publication: 04 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108615020.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Simmenthal, 1978
  • William Phelan, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice
  • Online publication: 04 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108615020.008
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Simmenthal, 1978
  • William Phelan, Trinity College Dublin
  • Book: Great Judgments of the European Court of Justice
  • Online publication: 04 November 2020
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108615020.008
Available formats
×