Why Do the European Court of Justice Judges Need Legal Concepts?

The article considers the reasons why the European Court of Justice (ECJ) judges need legal concepts when they pronounce their judgments. It points out that the ECJ as a law‐interpreting and an ipso facto law‐making court needs legal concepts to communicate results of its interpretative and law‐making enterprise. The article also shows how in the context of Article 234 EC preliminary ruling procedure legal concepts become useful tools of portraying ECJ judgments as mere products of interpretation and not as the results of subsuming the facts of the case into a legal provision. It is by means of application of legal concepts, that the ECJ judges are able to justify that they are not overstepping the mandate they have been entrusted with. In the same time the use of legal concepts enables them to engage in dialogue with national judges, who seek guidance as to the content of EC law rules, and to maintain a strong doctrine of precedent. Most importantly, however, the use of concepts promotes coherence which, the article maintains, is the primary source of Community law's authority, and thus constitutes the foundational technique of persuading the relevant audience that Community law is indeed a legal system.     

Between Procedural Impermeability and Constitutional Openness: The Italian Constitutional Court and Preliminary References to the European Court of Justice

On 15 April 2008, the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) raised for the first time a preliminary question to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This decision (see judgment No 102/2008 and order No 103/2008) represented a turning point in the ICC's case‐law, and calls for a careful assessment of the motives backing such revirement as well as of the legal reasoning that the Italian judges used to wrap it up without repudiating their previous case‐law. In addition to this preliminary analysis, the aim of this essay is to explore two themes: i) the developments of the ICC's case‐law as regards the role of Community Law and the ECJ, and ii) the appraisal of the interplay between the ICC and the ECJ in the light of the notion of ‘interpretive competition’.     

Principle of Proportionality as Principle of Economic Efficiency

The principle of proportionality is at the cornerstone of EU law, and precisely of the case‐law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ). In the law and economics literature, the general principles of law are commonly opposed to legal rules in terms of efficiency. On the one hand, the legal formalistic approach consists of apprehending the law as principled, whereby principles of law do not and should not encompass an efficiency rationale and should be self‐sufficient. On the other hand, the legal nihilism denying the existence or relevance of the general principles of law favours legal rules that are said to incorporate an efficiency rationale. I intend to analyse the efficiency rationale of probably the most important general principles of EU law—the proportionality principle. In this paper, I shall assert that not only does the EU proportionality principle encapsulate an efficiency rationale, but most importantly, it has been interpreted by the ECJ as such—hence, I propose the representation of the principle of proportionality as a principle of economic efficiency. After having introduced the principle of proportionality (1), I shall decipher the proportionality principle both from a law and economics perspective, and from a comparative perspective (2). Then, I shall delve into the jurisprudence of the ECJ so that the judicial reasoning of the Court as this reasoning proves the relevance of the proposed representation (3). Finally, I conclude in light of the findings of this paper (4).     

刑法解释的立场是客观解释——基于会话含义理论的分析

司法者理解和解释法律的活动是其和法律文本进行对话的过程,语用学中的会话含义理论可以作为研究法律解释问题的分析工具。根据会话含义理论,立法者预料到并期待解释者会根据文本的语义结构、读者的心理图式、生活中的常规关系等解读出刑法文本的语用意义,司法者必然会根据语境因素对刑法文本的意义进行语用推理,解读出字面意义之外的隐含意义、形式意义之外的实质意义、语义意义之外的语用意义,并且在不同语境下解读出不同意义。刑法文本为语用推理划定了大致范围,语用推理实现了文本静态意义向动态意义的转化,因此刑法解释立场是并应该是客观解释。     

WTO规则在欧盟法律体系中效力的新发展——统一解释原则的确定与适用

WTO规则在其成员国国内具有何种法律效力这一问题同保护私人从WTO规则中所获得的确定性和可预见性有着紧密的联系。在WTO成员普遍反对直接适用WTO规则的情况下,欧盟法院于最近案例中确立的统一解释原则为WTO规则的国内效力问题的发展带来了曙光。尽管欧盟法院在适用统一解释原则时存在法律解释技术上的问题,这一实践对于其他WTO成员实践的影响仍值得期待。     

The Special Case Thesis

The author outlines his thesis that legal discourse is a special case of general practical discourse ( Sonderfallthese ) and develops it as an attempt to cover both the authoritative, institutional, or real and free, discursive, or ideal dimension of legal reasoning. On this basis, he examines the objections raised by Habermas (1996) to the special case thesis. First, he discusses the reduction of general practical discourse to moral discourses ( genus proximum problem) holding that the former is a combination of moral, ethical, and pragmatic arguments within the priority of just; second, he examines the objection that general practical arguments change their character or nature when employed in legal contexts (subset and specification problem) and the related problems concerning legal validity and unjust law. He concludes proposing a procedural (opposite to a coherential) integration of general practical arguments in the legal context.     

《WTO协定》中“shall”和“should”词义实证研究

条约用语的意义模糊并非一个独立问题.通过对WTO案例的实证研究可知,“shall”与“should”在权威的公共英语词典和法律英语词典中都有多义性特征,由此导致成员方和争端解决机构对WTO诸协定中“shall”与“should”具有强制性抑或劝告性意义产生分歧,影响了WTO相关规则的法律确定性和可预见性.产生这种分歧的原因较为复杂,主要包括国际法本身的局限性、条约用语的含义可能会随上下文而变化、成员依据其利益对国际法规则作不断变化和不一致的解读、语言模糊性等.采用规范分析方法、语义分析方法、实证研究、系统分析等方法,可以根据《维也纳条约法公约》第31、32条规定的习惯法解释规则合理、准确地选择“shall”与“should”的恰当含义.二者既具有强制性含义又具有劝告性含义,如何在具体语境下确定其具体含义,尚未被不充分的条约实践和条约法规则所证实.     

Hybrid Texts and Uniform Law? The Multilingual Case Law of the Court of Justice of the European Union

The case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) is shaped by the language in which it is drafted—i.e. French. However, because French is rarely the mother tongue of those drafting that case law, the texts produced are often stilted and awkward. In addition, those drafting such case law are constrained in their use of language and style of writing (owing to pressures of technology and in order to reinforce the rule of law). These factors have led to the development of a ‘Court French’ which necessarily shapes the case law produced and has implications for its development, particularly insofar as it inevitably leads to a type of precedent in that case law. That case law also undergoes many permutations of translation into and out of up to 23 different languages. The resultant texts that make up the case law are hybrid in nature—consisting of a blend of cultural and linguistic patterns, constrained by a rigid formulistic drafting style and put through many permutations of translation. The present paper investigates the production of the Court’s multilingual case law and considers whether the hybrid nature of that case law can actually aid the presentation (and thus the development) of a ‘uniform’ EU case law.     

The Evolving Judicial Politics of European Integration: The European Court of Justice and national courts revisited

This article analyzes how the judicial politics sparked by the European Union's (EU) legal development have evolved over time. Existing studies have traced how lower national courts began cooperating with the European Court of Justice (ECJ) to apply EU law because this empowered them to challenge government policies and the decisions of their domestic judicial superiors. We argue that the institutional dynamics identified by this ‘judicial empowerment thesis’ proved self‐eroding over time, incentivizing domestic high courts to reassert control over national judicial hierarchies and to influence the development EU law in ways that were also encouraged by the ECJ. We support our argument by combining an analysis of a dataset of cases referred to the ECJ with comparative case study and interview evidence. We conclude that while these evolving judicial politics signal the institutional maturation of the EU legal order, they also risk weakening the decentralized enforcement of European law.     

A Modest Notion of Coherence in Legal Reasoning. A Model for the European Court of Justice

Abstract. The aim of this article is to propose a theoretical theme to explain coherence in legal reasoning. The main argument that this paper wants to put forward is that theories of coherence in the legal system should be differentiated from theories of coherence in legal reasoning. These focus on arguments, and on how the given arguments are connected. In particular, the notion of coherence in legal reasoning proposed here is a modest one. The article applies this theme to the case‐law of the European Court of Justice in environmental matters. This provides an example of how to deal with conflicts between incommensurable goods, and how to promote coherence by justifying decisions.

相似文献   

Out of the Fly-Bottle: Conceptual Confusions in Multilingual Legislation

Conceptual confusions permeate all forms of intellectual pursuit. Many have contended that multilingual legislation, i.e., one law enacted in different languages, is unviable when carried out by means of translation. But not many have realized that the same would also be true of drafting if their contention could be justified. My involvement in the translation of Hong Kong laws into Chinese in the run-up to 1997 exposed me to a whole world of myths and misconceptions about legal translation arising from our failure to command a clear view of the workings of language. Over the years I have endeavoured to come to grips with the problems inherent in legal translation, showing that the arguments against the possibility of exact translation, against the possibility of achieving equivalence between different language texts of the law, and against the possibility of bridging the conceptual gap between legal terminologies in different languages, are all ill-grounded and misguided. There are indeed enormous difficulties in drafting and translating multilingual law, but they are essentially of a technical nature, by no means theoretically irresolvable. The viability of multilingual legislation is simply grounded in our innate communicative intention to use signs and symbols to convey meaning. As language users, we are capable of making language work for us for any particular purpose. Just as we can translate the rules of chess from one language to another whereby players speaking different languages can play the same game called “chess”, we don’t see why we can’t do the same with multilingual legislation. The door has always been open!     

How Does the European Court of Justice Reason? A Review Essay on the Legal Reasoning of the European Court of Justice

This review essay analyses two significant recent contributions to the debate over the reasoning of the Court of Justice (CJ). These contributions highlight the impossibility of a wholly scientific and deductive approach to attributing ‘correct’ outcomes to the Court's case‐law. At the same time, their analysis adds significant findings for the debate over the Court's possible ‘activist’ or political role. Following from these contributions, this essay makes two arguments: firstly, that the inability of the Court to anchor its reasoning solely in a deductive form of legal reasoning should encourage the CJ to engage in a more advanced ‘constitutional dialogue’ with the EU's political institutions; and secondly, that truly understanding the Court's reasoning involves a closer analysis of the institutional and personal dynamics influencing Court decisions. Understanding European judicial reasoning may require a closer look at the social and political—as well as doctrinal—context within which European judges act.     

On the Autonomy of Legal Reasoning*

Abstract The paper argues that reasoning according to law is an instance of moral reasoning. Several ways of understanding this claim are distinguished. A number of arguments to the effect that because of the internal logic of the law, or the special skills it involves legal reasoning should be seen as immune to moral considerations are rejected. Nevertheless, the paper affirms the relative and limited autonomy of legal reasoning, and the sui generis role of doctrine in it which is manifested in the many cases in which the moral considerations pertaining to the case underdetermine its result.     

Challenging EU constitutional law: The Italian Constitutional Court's new stance on direct effect and the preliminary reference procedure

This article seeks to examine the relationship between EU law and the Italian legal order in light of the recent Italian Constitutional Court (ICC)’s jurisprudence attempting to redefine EU core principles. When fundamental rights are at stake, three assumptions are challenged: the determination of direct effect shall be a prerogative of the ECJ; EU directly effective provisions entail the disapplication of conflicting national law; judges have the discretion to refer preliminary references to the ECJ where a clarification on EU law is needed. The contribution argues that the judicial search for a balance between sovereignty and supranationality is undermined by the ICC's new resistance to the well‐established EU jurisprudence. In that respect, the paper posits that the ICC's activism is the result of an unjustified ‘argumentative self‐restraint’ of the ECJ vis‐à‐vis the evolution of EU foundational principles.     

The Limitations of a Multilingual Legal System

The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the way in which it works can be seen as a microcosm of how a multilingual, multicultural supranationalisation process and legal order can be constructed—the Court is a microcosm of the EU as a whole and in particular of EU law. The multilingual jurisprudence produced by the CJEU is necessarily shaped by the dynamics within that institution and by the ‘cultural compromises’ at play in the production process. The resultant texts, which make up that jurisprudence, are hybrid in nature and inherently approximate. On the one hand, that approximation can lead to discrepancies between language versions of the Court’s case law and thus jeopardise the uniform application of EU law. On the other hand, that approximation and hybridity define EU law as a distinct, supranational legal order. This paper analyses the operation of the CJEU and considers whether a linguistic cultural compromise exists within that institution which exercises a formative influence on the character of its ‘output’—i.e. its jurisprudence—and what that may mean for our understanding of the development of EU law.     

论期待可能性理论的合理性——基于言伴语境理论的考察

只有在特定语境下才能达成对文本的理解和解释，言伴语境对意义生成具有重要作用。法律解释的言伴语境是当下案件事实。法官处理案件时在其前见的指引下根据法律规定选择、建构案件事实，根据案件事实赋予法律文本以语用意义，并且在语境和文本、案件事实和法律文本之间的多次循环往复中实现解释者和文本的视域融合，使法律文本的意义不断丰富和完善。刑法未规定期待可能性，但对其适用体现了言伴语境对文本意义的作用，因而其存在具有合理性。适用该理论不会打破法律的安定性和灵活性之间的平衡，法官因此而行使自由裁量权不违背现代法治精神。     

论法律推理的缺陷及其克服

在法律推理的过程中,大前提的形成具有论题学的或然性、可论辩性。大前提的论题学性质相对于判决的正确性、合理性来讲是一种缺陷,法律论证可在一定程度上克服法律推理的这种缺陷,消解推理前提的论题学性质,防止法官的任意裁判,进而能够在较深层次上起到维护法治的作用。     

Argumentation and Interpretation in Law

Abstract
The author proceeds from a brief elucidation of the concept "argumentation" through a more extended account of substantive reasons in pure practical argumentation and of institutional argumentation applying "authority reasons" as grounds for legal decisions to an initial account of the nature and place of legal interpretative reasoning. Then he explores the three main categories of interpretative arguments, linguistic arguments, systemic arguments and teleological/deontological arguments; and he examines the problem of conflicts of interpretation and their resolution. His conclusion is that legal argumentation is only partly autonomous since it has to be embedded within widerelements of practical argumentation.     

Who’s Your Daddy?

This paper provides a brief explanation and illustration of the phenomenon of semiotics. It then describes the conceptual tools of semiotics and how lawyers can use semiotics in law to create compelling arguments. Last, the paper applies the tools of semiotics to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court case Ferguson v. McKiernan, 940 A.2d 1236 (Pa. 2008), to reveal the shift in social context that made the lines of legal reasoning behind the outcome appear “self-evident.”     

不确定法律语言的救济

法律与语言的关系极其密切,法律离不开语言。有些语言天生存在着不确定性,导致法律的不确定性增强。法律语言的不确定主要是因为语言的模糊和歧义造成的。法律语言的抽象范式与具体案件发生的实然形态具有天然的距离,虽然一定程度上增加法律规则适用的弹性,但是也在消解着法律的确定含义。消除法律语言的不确定,维护法律的确定性,需要从多种途径入手。需要依靠语言探究法律的确定性,通过各种法律解释方法维护法律的确定性,规范使用法律语言保障法律的确定性。