Bulletin n. 1-2/2014
November 2014
CONTENTS
  • Section A) The theory and practise of the federal states and multi-level systems of government
  • Section B) Global governance and international organizations
  • Section C) Regional integration processes
  • Section D) Federalism as a political idea
    • Klaus Ferdinand Gärditz
    Beyond Symbolism: Towards a Constitutional Actio Popularis in EU Affairs? A Commentary on the OMT Decision of the Federal Constitutional Court
    in German Law Journal , vol. 15, issue 2 ,  2014 ,  183-201
    In its OMT Decision of 14 January 2014, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, hereinafter: BVerfG) made its first referral for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This has been perceived by some commentators as an act of submission under the judicial sovereignty of the ECJ, and by some as a strategy to pass the ball to the ECJ and postpone further involvement , which the Court willingly entered into when it ordered its bold preliminary injunction. These are questions of legal symbolism used in the political communication triggered by any major decision of a constitutional court. Kept in the right perspective, the Court merely followed the program laid down in Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). It, thus, fulfilled an obligation that is, undoubtedly, binding on all national courts, including the BVerfG (as a court of last resort), which had—in its Mangold decision— expressly announced that it would refer to the ECJ in appropriate circumstances.
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