Overview

In several EU Member States, constitutional courts have reviewed European law on its compatibility with national constitutional law. These judgments deal with issues of major importance such as EU democratic legitimacy, the protection of fundamental rights, and the status of national sovereignty within the EU. Yet should national courts decide such issues of key constitutional significance for the EU? Or is it more democratic to leave these matters to political institutions that represent Europe's citizens and are politically accountable to them? In Judging European Democracy, Nik de Boer argues that the national courts' review of European law can actually constrain democratic debate over the EU's constitutional underpinnings. Rather than opening up a space for discourse or addressing democratic problems with the EU's decision-making process, national courts risk taking sides in good faith political disagreements among elected legislators about constitutional questions relating to the EU, thus distorting, rather than protecting, the democratic decision-making process. Judging European Democracy uniquely combines constitutional and political theory with an in-depth case study of the German Constitutional Court, the EU's most authoritative constitutional court. Based on an extensive analysis of parliamentary debates, EU policy documents, and interviews with politicians, policymakers, and constitutional court judges, the case study shows how the German Constitutional Court has distorted political debate and democracy in the EU. Scholars, practitioners, and policymakers involved in political theory, political science, EU constitutional law, and European integration will find this book compelling.

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9780192845238

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Reviews

Nik de Boer's study combines empirical research with legal analysis in a unique and fascinating way. The fusion of original interviews, a thorough scrutiny of parliamentary debates and an in-depth examination of the relevant case law offers the international (and also German!) readership an extremely rich and valuable wealth of new insights. The study offers a consistently balanced and differentiated line of reasoning, but at the same time clearly underlines the thesis that the EU-related case law of national constitutional courts actually threatens to unduly restrict the democratic decision-making process that it purports to protect. Alexis de Tocqueville and Édouard Lambert would have loved this book! * Mattias Wendel, Professor of Public Law, EU Law, International Law, Migration Law and Comparative Law, Leipzig University, Germany * Judging European Democracy provides a unique combination of a thorough analysis in constitutional and political theory, discussing ongoing debates on the legitimacy of constitutional review, and an in-depth analysis of constitutional debates on EU matters in Germany. The case study of the German Constitutional Court helps to test various theoretical claims against concrete constitutional and political practice. In this way, Judging European Democracy contributes both to the theoretical debate concerning constitutional review-in general and in the context of the EU-as well as to the debate concerning constitutional practice in the EU and possible institutional reform. * Jan Komárek, Professor of European law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, Denmark *

Author Information

Nik de Boer is Assistant Professor of constitutional law at the University of Amsterdam and a member of the editorial board of the European Constitutional Law Review. He received a PhD from the University of Amsterdam and has held visiting positions at the European Court of Justice, Harvard Law School, and at the Center for Global Constitutionalism of the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB). Previously, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for Contemporary European Studies (ACCESS EUROPE) and an Assistant Professor of financial law at the University of Amsterdam.

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