The Court of Appeal by Gavin Drewry, Louis Blom‐Cooper and Charles Blake
| Date | 01 November 2007 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.2007.00677_3.x |
| Published date | 01 November 2007 |
post-national context it is no longer the state thatdetermines the extent andl imits
of legal and political authority over its territory, it is certainly not an accurate
description of the way orthodox lawyers (and constitutional courts) treat their
constitutional law. Since there is no guarantee that Community law will always
conformto generally accepted standards in Member State constitutions, constitu-
tional courtshave acceptedits validity but queriedits overridingapplication in the
national legal order. Most recently, in 2005the Federal Constitutional Court held
that the statute implementing the Framework Decision on the European arrest
warrant violated the Basic Law.
11
Wahl does not discuss the political tensions that arise as regards the relationship
between law (constitution) and politics (state), and as a consequence of European
integration.This is unfortunate as theresult is a relatively smooth description of the
evolution of German public law since 1949 instead of a richer description of public
law as the result of contention and compromise. From the perspective of national
courts ^ and this is true for Germany and the United Kingdom ^ it is still the
national constitution that remains the foundation and the apex of the legal order.
Yet if theprinciple ofsupremacyof Communitylaw is not unreservedly embraced
by the national legal orders, the result will eventually be a legally irreconcilable
con£ict of norms. Instead of stressing the importance of understanding law
historically,Wahl’s British colleagues might also have added that a comprehensive
historisation of public law needs to address questions relating to ultimate power
and sovereignty that are at stake in the relationship between national and
European law.
Jo Eric Khushal Murkens
n
Gavin Drewry, Louis Blom-Cooper and Charles Blake, The Court of Appeal,
xix þ185 p p, h b d30.0 0, Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2007
Since its inception 130 years or so ago, the Court of Appeal (CA) has been a pivo-
tal institution in the English judicial system. As evidenced by the campaigners
who gather outside the Royal Courts of Justice when an important judgment is
handed down, the public has increasinglycome to recognise it as such. The vast
majority of its decisions are particularly important given that only a fraction of
them are considered on appeal by the House of Lords (HL).
The authors note that, given the CA’s importance, it has received ‘surprisingly
little scholarly attention’ ^ a sentiment shared by Lord Phillips in his Foreword.
They thus assumed great responsibilityi nundertaking to ¢ll this lacuna.They are
ideally suitedto the task: each having relevant expertise andtwo having writtena
similar bookon the House of Lords (Blom-Cooper and Drewry, Final Appeal. A
Study of the House of Lordsin its Judicial Capacity (Oxford,1972)).
11 BVerfG,2 BvR 2236/04 of 18July 2005.
n
Law Department,London School of Economics. All translations are my own.
Reviews
103 2 r2007 The Authors. Journal Compilation r2007 The Modern LawReview Limited.
(2007) 70(6) 1023^1043
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