Common use of Stakeholder Participation Clause in Contracts

Stakeholder Participation. Although extremely radical, might it be possible to open up the discourse at the national level and the European level, through court action? The Lisbon Treaty is not the end station, the continued evolution of the Union based on the rule of law, democracy, and protection of fundamental rights – at European and national level – will need to be further negotiated. Even the ECJ, as ▇▇▇▇▇▇ notes,205 although it has repeatedly stated that European citizenship is destined to become the fundamental status of the Union’s individual members, “has steadfastly limited its jurisprudence to the realm of free movement and to an apolitical concept of citizens. There is much scope for a new essential jurisprudence in this area.” For citizens of EU Member States, periodic parliamentary elections and occasional referenda are unable to fill the lacunae adequately. Could not an opening up of the European constitutional order to litigation –in the same way as the Art. 267 TFEU reference procedure has achieved – at the national and supranational levels actually provoke the negotiation where EU citizens could exercise more control over or more participation in providing input into these negotiations? ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ has articulated the ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ of migration of constitutional ideas and has argued that these migrations do not necessarily mean a one-way traffic from West to East. His reasoning is one with which the present author agrees and identifies the proposal set out below with ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇’▇ philosophy on championing migration from “East” to West. The proposal is admittedly radical and invests EU citizens, national constitutional courts and the ECJ with greater degrees of responsibility in the discourse on the continued evolution of the concept of sovereignty at both national and European levels. The jurisdiction of neither the FCC nor the CT includes the possibility of the actio popularis available before the HCC.207 Yet in all these states, the understanding of the “essential core of sovereignty” or “constitutional identity” – what ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ has referred to as the “conservatory elements of statehood”208 – has come from national constitutional court case decisions on the application of the rule of law, democracy, separation of powers or fundamental human rights to concrete cases (usually on reference from an ordinary court) or on the limitations to the transfer of the exercise of national powers to the EU in these areas. Could not the broadening of standing at the national level before the domestic constitutional court, beyond either ordinary judges or specific political actors to include parties in the case before the ordinary court or – more controversially – any EU citizen domiciled in that particular Member State, open up a discourse beyond those of national executives and parliaments? Might this reinforce the evolution of the very nature of popular sovereignty for the twenty-first century? Needless to say, unless some limits are imposed, the use of judicial means to “court” constitutional dialogue between European and national constitutional judges could easily overload the system and create insupportable delays in proceedings. The technology definitely exists to allow for this expansion of court activity but adaptation of present procedures and sufficient skilled staff would be necessary: the costs would, however, be much less than those entailed in the setting up of a new institution. 205 ▇▇▇▇▇▇ (2006), at 127. 206 ▇. ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇, “Migration as a new metaphor in comparative constitutional law,” in ▇. ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ (ed.), The Migration of Constitutional Ideas, CUP, Cambridge (2007), chap. 1, 1, at 12. 207 See above at Chapter Four, point A.2. 208 Dashwood (1998), at 201-202.