French constitutional council and European law

International and Comparative Law Quarterly

Volumn 54, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 735-744

  Bell, John ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 27244441160     PISSN: 00205893     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1093/iclq/lei025     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. P Mazeaud Le Monde 20 Jan 1996 p 13, reproduced in (1996) 28 Revue française de droit constitutionnel 702-4. The proposed constitutional amendment forbidding the Government from approving European legislation which infringed the French Constitution is set out in 28 Revue française de droit constitutionnel 705-6.
2. The importance of the decision can be seen by the press coverage, eg H Gattengo and C Jakubyszyn 'Le droit européen prime desormais sur la Constitution française' Le Monde 16 June 2004.
3. R Sacco La comparaison juridique au service de la connaissance du droit (Economica Paris 1991), 139.
4. F Ost and M Van de Kerchove De la pyramide au réseau (Facultés Universitaires Saint Louis Brussels 2002) 184.
5. See G Vedel Droit constitutionnel (Sirey Paris 1949) 529: There cannot be sovereignty of the law and of the national legislator in matters in which the State has voluntarily accepted the limitation of that sovereignty. (But he then explained that ratification involves an act of the legislator in the first place, so the sovereignty of the legislator is in fact preserved.)
6. J Bell French Constitutional Law (OUP Oxford 1992) 28.
7. id French Legal Cultures (Butterworths London 2001) 200: CC decision No 92-308 DC of 9 Apr 1992, Rec 55.
8. CC decision no 74-54 DC of 15 Jan 1975, Rec. 19, see Bell French Constitutional Law 75 and 318: 'Considering that a loi contrary to a treaty is not, as such, contrary to the Constitution...' (considérant 5).
9. O Dutheillet de Lamothe 'Le Conseil constitutionnel et le droit européen' (2004) 57 Revue française de droit constitutionnel 23, 27.
10. ibid.
11. Considérant 8 of the decision.
12. A rather extreme interpretation would be to suggest that the logic of this change of constitutional basis for the status of EU legislation would be to give the whole of Community law constitutional status and to permit any national law to be reviewed by the Conseil constitutionnel for its compatibility with EU law: J Roux 'Le Conseil constitutionnel, le droit communautaire derive et la Constitution' RDP 2004, 912 at 923-4.
13. See B Genevois 'Le Conseil constitutionnel et le droit communautaire dérivé' Rfda 2004, 651.
14. Above n 9, 25; cf Commentary, AJDA 2004, 2261 at 2265.
15. CE Ass plén, 2 June 2000, Mlle Fraisse, D 2000 J 865, note Mathieu et Verpaux;
16. CE Ass, 30 Oct 1998, Sarran, Rfda 1998, 1081 concl Maugüé.
17. CE 3 Dec 2001, Syndical national de l'industrie pharmeceutique, AJDA 2002, 1219 note Valenbois. This is in line with the broader thrust of the Cohn-Bendit decision of 1978, for which Genevois was commissaire du gouvernement, and Dutheillet de Lamothe was an approving commentator.
18. See D Chamussy AJDA 2004, 1937 at 1940
19. B Mathieu, D 2004 Chr 1739.
20. See fundamental principles recognized by the laws of the Republic. A similar criticism of the concept of a 'express provision' of the Constitution is offered by H Oberdorff, 'Le Conseil constitutionnel et l'ordre juridique communautaire: Coopération et contrôle' RDP 2004, 869.
21. Above n 13, 657.
22. See Bell 'The Expansion of Judicial Review over Discretionary Powers in France' [1986] PL 99 at 103-7.
23. See further, I Cameron 'The Protection of Constitutional Rights in Sweden' [1997] PL 488.
24. Brunner [1994] 1 CMLR 57, §13.
25. See J Schwarze (ed) The Birth of a European Constitutional Order (Nomos Baden-Baden 2000) 362-6.
26. In this decision, as in CC decision no 2004-497 DC of 1 July 2004, Telecommunications Package, Giscard d'Estaing did sit as a member of the Conseil.
27. Considérant 10.
28. Considérant 12.
29. 'Le Conseil constitutionnel aux prises avec le droit constitutionnel dérivé' RDP 2004, 889.
30. On reservations of interpretation generally, see Bell French Constitutional Law 53-4.
31. Case No 4774/98 of 29 June 2004.
32. Considérant 25.
33. Art III-270, -271, -273, -276 and -300 §2 (b) CT.
34. Art III-264, -273, -275, -276, and -277 CT.
35. A number of provisions on the areas fludicial cooperation in criminal matters and common foreign and security policy were identified here in considérant 34 of the Conseil's decision, as well as the generalized 'simplified revision' procedure of Arts IV-444 and IV-445. The necessary amendments to the Constitution were made by the Constitutional Law of 1 March 2005.
36. Above n 4.