Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2021)
THE INFLUENCE OF THE EUROPEAN LAW AND OF THE CASE LAW DEVELOPED BY THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION ON THE CONSTITUTIONAL REVIEW IN ROMANIA
Abstract
The paper intends to highlight the complex influences that are inherent to the interaction of the European law and domestic law, from the perspective of the constitutional review. Constitutional adjudication is one of the most effective instruments of the rule of law, but usually the reference norm is the national Basic Law. Nevertheless, as a Member State of the European Union, Romania has recognized the guiding principles developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union Democratic in its case law, namely the direct effect and the precedence of European law in case of inconsistency of domestic law. Thus, under certain conditions, the Constitutional Court of Romania had to extend the reference norms in order to take into consideration the European law, as well. Hence, one of the consequences of Romania's accession to the European Union was that certain norms of European Union law became a reference tool for exercising constitutional review through the glass of Article 148 of the Romanian Basic Law which enshrines the prevalence of the founding treaties of the European Union and of other binding Community (European) regulations over contrary provisions of national law. Furthermore, CJEU-s case law gained an important place in the reasoning of the Romanian Constitutional Court-s decisions. Last, but not least, the paper will present the interaction of the two fore mentioned courts in relation with the preliminary rulings rendered by CJEU in accordance with Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
