Constitutional justices as Sample Clauses

Constitutional justices as. “guardians of the State” in the face of EU integration The main change in the role of the constitutional court in the EU – or perhaps an additional cameo – is as the standard-bearer for the continued existence of the State in the Union and the integration project. Echoing Alter,12 the constitutional courts have – in many instances – perceived European law as a threat to their independence, influence and authority since it disrupted national hierarchies and allowed for different legal outcomes in a case. As protectors of the national legal order, constitutional courts are especially sensitive to and concerned about the disruptive influence of European law, with ECJ rulings effectively undermining legal certainty. In the words of Xxxxxxxx:13 From the standpoint of a national lawyer, European law is often a source of disruption. It injects into the legal system rules which are alien to its traditions and which may affect its deeper structure, thereby threatening its coherence. It may also be a source of arbitrary distinctions between similar situations…. What appears as integration at the European level is often perceived as disintegration from the perspective of national legal systems. While the role as “guardian of the State” developed for constitutional tribunals and supreme courts in the original Member States (and some of the later adherents), by the time of the Mediterranean enlargements a xxxxxx understanding of the constitutional impact of EEC law was coming to the fore – hence the provisions of the Spanish Constitution on membership of international organisations and transfers of (the exercise of) sovereignty.14 The constitutional changes in the EU of the 1990s put the accession states (and their constitutional tribunals) on a state of high alert. The wording of the so-called “Europe clauses” were drafted in such a way as to allow national constitutional courts leeway for interpretation and protection of the State’s essential core of sovereignty. Why, they would reason, should they devolve power to the EU when states such as France and Germany had actually amended their constitutions and had had their highest (constitutional) courts declare the acceptable limits on the transfer of the exercise of national powers to the EU?