Original scientific paper
Interpretative effect of European law in and before EU membership
Tamara Ćapeta
Abstract
European Union law concerns judges in the EU Member States in two ways: it either directly creates rights and obligations for the parties to the dispute before the court (direct effect), or it influences the meaning of the existing rules of domestic law (indirect or interpretative effect). The author analyses the second type of effects that EU norms have for national judges. The first part analyses indirect effect as developed and explained by the European Court of Justice and the obligations that it creates for the judges of the courts in the EU Member States. Beside the rules as developed by the European Court, the author is looking into the motivation behind such rules – what is achieved by them in the legal order of the EU, and why national courts have accepted them. The responses to these questions are relevant for the second part of the article, in which the author develops arguments for accepting interpretative effects of EU law in the legal order of the candidate country, Croatia being in such status at the moment. The author also points out the possible difficulties in importing the indirect effects into the Croatian legal order, especially those that are the result of differences in legal culture.
Keywords
EU law; interpretative effect; courts of the EU Member States; courts of the candidate countries
Hrčak ID:
5055
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2006.
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