COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EU. COMMENTARY ON STATUTE AND RULES OF PROCEDURE. Ed B Wägenbaur Oxford: Hart (www.hartpub.co.uk), 2013. lxxiv + 921 pp. ISBN 9781841139951. £165.

Date01 September 2013
Pages444-445
DOI10.3366/elr.2013.0181
AuthorRoss Carrick
Published date01 September 2013

In this review, I explain the purpose and describe the content of this book. I then go on to present a few critical observations.

The primary remit of this book is to provide an exposition of the rules of law that govern the legal processes before the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter the CJEU). This exposition, moreover, is not intended to be simply a consolidated compendium of these rules, but to alert the reader to interesting and important matters associated with their formation. Indeed, at the outset, adverting to the well-recognised instrumental role the EU (more generally) has played in securing peace and stability in late 20th century Europe (and beyond), Wägenbaur provocatively states that “[t]he Court of Justice of the European Union is thus much more than a supranational judicial instance: it serves the unity of EU law and is a major player in a vital peacekeeping mission… This requires an elaborate judicial system with a variety of legal remedies governed by specialized procedural rules” (v). The secondary remit of this book is thus to tease out the salient historical, normative, and comparative dimensions that underpin the CJEU's rules of procedure – providing commentary which serves as food for thought for those interested in the practice and theory of judicial governance in the EU.

As a preliminary observation, and the most immediately apparent, the rules of procedure of the CJEU are presented systematically and comprehensively. To those already accustomed to the study of these rules, the Statute of the Court of Justice (SCJ) and the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice of the European Union (RPCJ) are familiar doctrinal terrain, which are central to the analyses presented here. Yet as Wägenbaur correctly notes, the rules of procedure which govern the legal processes before the CJEU are derived from an expansive array of formal and informal sources – what he refers to as the “three regulatory levels” (1–9). “Primary Law” includes: the EU's Treaties; the SCJ (Protocol No.3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (hereinafter TFEU)); and general principles of law, including fundamental rights and general principles of law found in the CJEU's jurisprudence, the legal systems of the Member States of the EU, and international law. “Secondary Law” relates exclusively to the rules of procedure adopted by the Council of Ministers and the CJEU through the special legislative procedure provided for in Article...

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