Facts
Flaminio Costa was a Milanese lawyer as well as a user and shareholder of Edisonvolta, a municipal company involved in the nationalization of the electricity sector in Italy pursued by the Italian government at the end of 1962. Costa was assisted by Gian Galeazzo Stendardi, a Milanese lawyer, who wrote some pioneering works on Italian Constitutional Justice and the relationship between Community Law and Italian Law. Costa and Stendardi opposed electricity nationalization for political reasons.
When Costa received his first electricity bill from ENEL, the newly-established electricity monopolist, he refused to pay it, claiming that ENEL had not validly taken over his electricity supply contract with Edisonvolta, because the nationalisation law infringed both the Italian Constitution and the EEC Treaty.
In the ensuing lawsuit before the Justice of Peace of Milan (giudice conciliatore), Costa asked that court to refer the case to the Italian Constitutional Court and to the European Court of Justice. However, the Justice of Peace hearing his case, Antonio Carones, only referred the matter to the Italian Constitutional Court.
The Italian Constitutional Court gave its judgement on 24 February 1964, ruling that while Article 11 of the Italian Constitution enabled Parliament to adopt laws entailing the limitations of sovereignty necessary to join international organizations such as the EEC, those laws did not enjoy a special rank in the hierarchy of legal sources. Therefore, the ordinary rule of statutory interpretation granting precedence to the subsequent law in case of conflict ( lex posterior derogat legi anteriori/priori ) still applied. As a result, the Treaty of Rome, which was incorporated into Italian law in 1958, could not prevail over the electricity nationalisation law which was enacted in 1962. [2]
In the meantime, Costa had challenged the second electricity bill he had received from ENEL before another Justice of Peace of Milan, Vittorio Emanuele Fabbri. The latter referred the case both to the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice, asking the latter to rule on the consistency between the nationalisation statute and four provisions of the EEC Treaty.
Relying on the judgment of the Italian Constitutional Court, the Italian government argued that the preliminary reference to the European Court of Justice was inadmissible, as the giudice conciliatore had to apply the nationalisation statute even if it conflicted with the EEC Treaty, thus obviating the need for a ruling on the interpretation of the latter.
Judgment
The ECJ dismissed the inadmissibility plea, noting that even though it could not rule on the consistency between Italian law and Community law, it could assist the referring court in doing so, by providing the following authoritative interpretation of the EEC Treaty: [3]
As opposed to ordinary international treaties, the Treaty instituting the E.E.C. has created its own order, which was integrated with the national order of the member-States the moment the Treaty came into force; as such it is binding upon them. In fact, by creating a Community of unlimited duration, having its own institutions, its own personality and its own capacity in law, apart from having international standing and more particularly, real powers resulting from a limitation of competence or a transfer of powers from the States to the Community, the member-States, albeit within limited spheres, have restricted their sovereign rights and created a body of law applicable both to their nationals and to themselves. The reception, within the laws of each member-State, of provisions having a Community source, and more particularly of the terms and of the spirit of the Treaty, has as a corollary the impossibility, for the member-State, to give preference to a unilateral and subsequent measure against a legal order accepted by them on a basis of reciprocity.
[...]
It follows from all these observations that the law stemming from the treaty, an independent source of law, could not, because of its special and original nature, be overridden by domestic legal provisions, however framed, without being deprived of its character as community law and without the legal basis of the community itself being called into question. [4]
On the merits, the ECJ found that two provisions of the EEC Treaty mentioned in the order for reference had no direct effect and thus could not be invoked by individuals wishing to challenge national laws that allegedly infringed those provisions. The ECJ interpreted a third provision of the EEC Treaty rather narrowly, thus suggesting that the nationalisation law was consistent with it. The ECJ instead left to the referring court to establish whether the nationalisation law was consistent with the fourth provision of the EEC Treaty.
Significance
This groundbreaking case established the principle of supremacy in EU law, which is an independent source of law that cannot be overridden by domestic laws. [1]
Article I-6 of the proposed European Constitution stated: "The Constitution and law adopted by the institutions of the Union in exercising competences conferred on it shall have primacy over the law of the Member States". The constitution was never ratified, after being rejected in referendums in France and the Netherlands in 2005. Its replacement, the Treaty of Lisbon, did not include the article on primacy but instead included a declaration recalling the case-law.
French Judge Robert Lecourt, who was on the Court from 1962 to 1976, would later argue these decisions "added nothing" other than to "give effect" to the treaties, an effect he felt was "commanded" by their being. [5]
The European Communities Act 1972, also known as the ECA 1972, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which made legal provision for the accession of the United Kingdom to the three European Communities – the European Economic Community, European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European Coal and Steel Community ; the EEC and ECSC subsequently became the European Union. The Act also incorporated Community Law into the domestic law of the United Kingdom and its acquis communautaire, its treaties, regulations and directives, together with judgments of the European Court of Justice, and the Community Customs Union, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the Common Fisheries Policy (FCP).
The European Court of Justice (ECJ), formally just the Court of Justice, is the supreme court of the European Union in matters of European Union law. As a part of the Court of Justice of the European Union, it is tasked with interpreting EU law and ensuring its uniform application across all EU member states under Article 263 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU).
The Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe was an unratified international treaty intended to create a consolidated constitution for the European Union (EU). It would have replaced the existing European Union treaties with a single text, given legal force to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and expanded qualified majority voting into policy areas which had previously been decided by unanimity among member states.
The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFR) enshrines certain political, social, and economic rights for European Union (EU) citizens and residents into EU law. It was drafted by the European Convention and solemnly proclaimed on 7 December 2000 by the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers and the European Commission. However, its then legal status was uncertain and it did not have full legal effect until the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon on 1 December 2009.
In European Union law, direct effect is the principle that Union law may, if appropriately framed, confer rights on individuals which the courts of member states of the European Union are bound to recognise and enforce.
R v Secretary of State for Transport was a judicial review case taken against the United Kingdom government by a company of Spanish fishermen who claimed that the United Kingdom had breached European Union law by requiring ships to have a majority of British owners if they were to be registered in the UK. The case produced a number of significant judgements on British constitutional law, and was the first time that courts held that they had power to restrain the application of an Act of Parliament pending trial and ultimately to disapply that Act when it was found to be contrary to EU law.
Gaspare Ambrosini was an Italian jurist and statesman.
Thoburn v Sunderland City Council is a UK constitutional and administrative law case, concerning the interaction of EU law and an Act of Parliament. It is important for its recognition of the supremacy of EU law and the basis for that recognition. Though the earlier Factortame had also referred to Parliament's voluntary acceptance of the supremacy of EU law, Thoburn put less stress on the jurisprudence of the ECJ and more on the domestic acceptance of such supremacy; Lord Justice Laws suggested there was a hierarchy of "constitutional statutes" that Parliament could only expressly repeal, and so were immune from implied repeal.
The European Union (EU) is a political and economic union of 27 member states that are party to the EU's founding treaties, and thereby subject to the privileges and obligations of membership. They have agreed by the treaties to share their own sovereignty through the institutions of the European Union in certain aspects of government. State governments must agree unanimously in the Council for the union to adopt some policies; for others, collective decisions are made by qualified majority voting. These obligations and sharing of sovereignty within the EU make it unique among international organisations, as it has established its own legal order which by the provisions of the founding treaties is both legally binding and supreme on all the member states. A founding principle of the union is subsidiarity, meaning that decisions are taken collectively if and only if they cannot realistically be taken individually.
Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen (1963) Case 26/62 was a landmark case of the European Court of Justice which established that provisions of the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community were capable of creating legal rights which could be enforced by both natural and legal persons before the courts of the Community's member states. This is now called the principle of direct effect. The case is acknowledged as being one of the most important, and possibly the most famous development of European Union law.
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The primacy of European Union law is a legal principle establishing precedence of European Union law over conflicting national laws of EU member states.
Marleasing SA v La Comercial Internacional de Alimentación SA (1990) C-106/89 was a decision of the European Court of Justice concerning the indirect effect of European Community law, now European Union law. It established that the courts of European Union member states have a duty to interpret national legislation in the light of unimplemented European Union directives.
Robert Lecourt was a French politician and lawyer, judge and the fourth President of the European Court of Justice. He was born in Pavilly and died in Boulogne-Billancourt.
Van Duyn v Home Office (1974) C-41/74 was a case of the European Court of Justice concerning the free movement of workers between member states.
Foster v British Gas plc (1990) C-188/89 is a leading EU law concerning the definition of the "state", for the purpose of determining which organisations in the private or public sector can be regarded as an organ of the state. The ECJ held a state is any manifestation or organisation under control of a central government.
Amministrazione delle Finanze v Simmenthal SpA (1978) Case 106/77 is an EU law case, concerning the conflict of law between a national legal system and European Union law.
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