European Integration and Justice
Code
MM143
Department
Área de Ensino
Credits
4
Weekly hours
3
Teaching language
Português
Objectives
The aim of this curricular unit is to put students in contact with the significant mutation which has taken place in the exercise of the jurisdictional function in the EU Member States, as a consequence of the integration process and especially as a consequence of the fact that such process transforms national courts and tribunals into EU common courts and tribunals and thus into the main organs of application of the EU law. That transformation has provoked loyalty conflicts, including of constitutional nature, and demands appropriate means to solve such conflicts. The course ends up with the analysis of the solutions, mainly of jurisdictional source, which have been found to face those problems.
Subject matter
1. The sources of EU law and its hierarchy.
1.1. Primary law and secondary law.
1.2. Articles 288 to 290 of the Treaty on the Functioning of EU.
2. EU law and Member States judges. National judges as EU common judges.
3. The duty of national judges to confer full effectiveness to EU law and the corollaries of such duty.
3.1. Direct effect.
3.2. Primacy.
3.3. Interpretation of national law in conformity with EU law.
3.4. State liability for violation of EU law perpetrated by national judges. 3.5. Interim measures.
4. EU law, material law and procedural law.
4.1. The principle of procedural autonomy of the Member States and its limits.
4.2. The principle of equivalence.
4.3. The principle of effectiveness.
Bibliography
CLAES, Monica, The National Courts Mandate in the European Constitution, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2006; COUTINHO, Francisco Pereira, Os Tribunais Nacionais na Ordem Jurídica Comunitária. O caso português, policopiado, Lisboa, 2009; DUBOS, Olivier, Les juridictions nationales, juge communautaire, Dalloz, Paris, 2001; GOMES, José Luís Caramelo, O Juiz Nacional e o Direito Comunitário, Almedina, Coimbra, 2003; SARMIENTO, Daniel, Poder Judicial y Integración Europea, Civitas, Madrid, 2004.
Teaching method
Teaching is simultaneously theoretical (presentation of contents) and practical (analysis of case law of the EU Court of Justice and of the national courts and tribunals). The evaluation includes a written exam at the end of semester and takes also into account the quality of the oral participation of the students during the semester.