Bulletin n. 2/2007
October 2007
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
    • Balaguer Callejón F.
    Los tribunales constitucionales en el proceso de integración europea
    in Revista de Derecho Constitucionál Europeo , n. 7 Anno 4 ,  2007
    This article tries to connect the relationship “European Court of Justice - Constitutional Courts” with the competences that are attributed to these judicial organs and with the structural conditions in which they develop their activities. The relationship between Constitutional Justice and integration process take us to the main questions that same integration process must face. The Constitutional Court, in every state that has got one, develops their functions according to the juridical order that it shall interpret and apply. That is the reason because the relation between the European order and national orders is based on the relation between the European Court and Constitutional Courts. The fear of the Constitutional intervention at the European debate is compressible because until now the integration process has historically been conducted by member states under a functional way. The integrations process made possible to avoid the national constitutional controls because the responsibility lays on European level. The voice of the Constitutional Courts was not defending the state prerogatives or the state powers, as it has been said. To defend the constitutionality of public powers activities is not to defend the state powers, to defend the constitutionality of public powers activities is to defend that public powers activities must be submit under juridical limits. These juridical limits are nowadays disappeared despite of the transition of national decision power to the European level. Anyway, the Constitutional Court resistance has given a false view of Constitutional Courts and also of Constitution. The apparent opposition between “Constitution” and “Integration”, which appears during the integration process, is an explanation for the incomprehensible erosion of the value of Constitution. As a result of initial configuration of the integration process, the European jurisdiction and the constitutional jurisdiction have used different languages, despite of their respective functions. While the European Courts used basically the “European law language” the Constitutional Courts used mainly the “Constitutional law language”. The bringing of those two languages has been a natural process. However, the European Court needed to assume constitutional techniques to realize its function and the Constitutional Courts must incorporate the European logic. Nevertheless, some isolation and some difficulties to establish a productive dialectical relation were inevitable. The European Court-Constitutional Courts relation will be really productive when both parts speak the same juridical language, the “European constitutional law language”. This article analyses the difficulties of the dialectical relation between European Court and national Court, and also the methods which can help the development conditions of a productive interaction between both jurisdictions. To reach this positive interaction is needed to make national constitutional law more European and European Law more constitutional.
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