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The European Court of Justice (ECJ) was formed out of the court of the ECSC, which was created to ensure that ECSC member states complied with their treaty obligations. The modern ECJ has largely the same function, although it has a vastly expanded competence, and a particular European view of law. For most purposes, the CFI now has equivalent jurisdiction to the ECJ, although the ECJ also has appellate jurisdiction from the CFI on points of law. So most of the following applies to the CFI as well, unless indicated to the contrary.
Composition
The ECJ currently has 25 judges, one from each member state (Art. 221), or `at least one' for the CFI (Art. 224). There are also eight advocates-general, whose job is to present a reasoned opinion to the judges of the ECJ on the issues at stake. The AG's decision is not binding, but seems to be followed more often than not. The judges, despite being appointed by the member states, are expected to be impartial, and not favour the interests of their own states.AGs are not formally attached to the CFI, but they can be requested by the CFI where necessary.
The judges of the ECJ are selected from lawyers of the members states ``entitled to hold the highest judicial office''. This means, in the UK, that selection is from judges of the CourtOfAppeal or HouseOfLords.
Purpose
The overarching purpose of the ECJ is to provide definitive rulings on the scope, effect, and interpretation of the ECTreaty and the legislation created under its authority.In many respects the ECJ appears to exercise similar functions to a ``supreme court'' in federal states -- ensuring that the laws of the subordinate jurisdictions are in compliance with the constitution (the constitution in this case being the EC Treaty, at least for the time being). However, despite the similarities between, for example, the ECJ and the US Supreme Court, the jurisdiction of the US Supreme Court to hold up Federal law (rather than state law) to judicial review is still contentious (despite Marbury v Maddison). There is, however, no doubt that the ECJ has jurisdiction to rule on the compliance of EU legislation with the Treaty (see, for example, Art. 230).
Technically, the ECJ does not hear appeals from decisions of the courts of member states. Instead it offers interpretations of EC legislation and the Treaties. However, these interpretations are in the context of real cases between real parties, and it is almost unthinkable now that a national court would make a decision against a clear ruling of the ECJ. This means that, in practice, the ECJ does act as a kind of appellate jurisdiction over national courts.
Procedure
The ECJ normally sits in a `chamber' of 3-7 judges. The `full court' or `plenary court' is 11-15 judges, and sits only very occasionally. Unlike, for example, the UK HouseOfLords, judgements of the ECJ are collegiate; there are no published dissenting views. The published judgement is supposed to represent the consensus view. Of course, there must undoubtedly be dissent on some issues, and this may account for why the published judgements are often not closely reasoned, and do not repay intense scrunity. Odd as this collegiate decision-making seems to UK lawyers, it has the undoubted benefit of freeing individual judges to decide against their own states' national interests where it seems proper to do so. Moreover, since the ECJ will frequently be taking decisions that go against the national interests of states with totally different legal traditions, it would be (it is argued) unhelpful to provide dissenting views which member states could try to rally behind.
Jurisdiction
In general, the ECJ has jurisdiction to hear the following types of case:
The CFI, along with the ECJ has jurisdiction to hear the following types of case:
Note that although only Art. 230 allows legislation to be annulled, the grounds for annullment in Art. 230 (misuse of powers, etc) can be cited in any action before the ECJ, to have the legislation declared invalid. However, such a declaration of invalidity applies only to the present proceedings -- it does not annull the meausure. This is important because annullment has very significant consequences for everybody in the EU; Art. 230 actions for annullment must be brought within two months. If a declaration of invalidity had the effect of annulling the legislative measure, it would mean that any piece of legislation could be annulled at any point after it was made.
Retrospectivity of decisions of the ECJ
If an action is brought to the ECJ, and the ECJ makes a decision on the interpretation of EC law, is it deciding what the law is now, or what the law has always been_? This is the same problem of retrospectivity that bedevils all legal systems that recognize precedent (see TheProblemWithPrecedent for a detailed discussion). If the court decides what the law has always been, and that decision conflicts with an earlier decision of the same court, then it is effectively ruling that it screwed up in the past. If it is deciding what the law is now, while leaving the old decision to stand, then the court is effectively creating new law.
Like the English courts, whenever the ECJ has considered the matter, it has tended to express the view that it is declaring what the law is (and, therefore, what it always has been), an not deciding what the law is (that is, stated what the law is now). If that is the case, then decisions must act retrospectively. This means that every decision of the ECJ that appears to change the law creates an opportunity for a litigant to bring an action on the basis that he suffered loss in following the earlier interpretation of the law.
The EC Treaty contains certain provisions that act to contain this problem. In particular, if a provision is annulled under Art. 230, Art. 231 provides that the court may decide how far-reaching that annullment is. It is open to the court to declare that the decision will not be retrospective.Such a decision would, perhaps, not be as illogical for the ECJ as it would for an English court because, although the ECJ respects precedent, it is not formally bound by precedent.
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