Judgment
The European Court of Justice, delivering its judgment on the 5 February 1963, firmly held that Article 12 was capable of creating personal rights for Van Gend en Loos. In a seminal judgment it gave a wide and purposive interpretation to the Treaty of Rome.
The Community constitutes a new legal order of international law for the benefit of which the states have limited their sovereign rights, albeit within limited fields and the subjects of which comprise not only member states but also their nationals. Independently of the legislation of member states, community law therefore not only imposes obligations on individuals but is also intended to confer upon them rights which become part of their legal heritage. These rights arise not only where they are expressly granted by the treaty, but also by reason of obligations which the treaty imposes in a clearly defined way upon individuals as well as upon the member states and upon the institutions of the community. —Judgment of the Court of 5 February 1963.The court gave guidance as to when a treaty article would be directly effective. It stated that it is necessary to consider the spirit, general scheme, and wording of a provision alleged to be directly effective. The court held that since the object of the Treaty of Rome was to establish a common market, for the benefit of individuals, the treaty is more than a typical international agreement. Not only does it create mutual obligations between states, but it is capable of giving individuals rights in the national courts.
The court decided that the fact that the failure of member states to comply with EU law could be supervised by enforcement actions brought either by the Commission or other member state, did not mean that individuals should not also be able to act as enforcers in national courts. Two reasons were given. The first was that a failure to recognise a concept of direct effect would not give sufficient legal protection to individuals. The second was that individual enforcement was an effective supervisory mechanism. The availability of supervision and legal application of article rights by individuals, the Commission and member states is described by Stephen Weatherill as being one of "dual vigilance".
On the question of the tariff on urea-formaldehyde, the Court ruled that the Netherlands could not impose a higher tariff than that in force on 1 January 1958 (when the Treaty came into force). The Court noted that increase in the tariff could arise either through an increase in the rate or through the reclassification of a product into a higher-rated category, and that both were illegal under Article 12. The question of the proper tariff for urea-formaldehyde (i.e., that which was correctly applied on 1 January 1958) was remitted to the national court.
Read more about this topic: Van Gend En Loos V Nederlandse Administratie Der Belastingen
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—Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)
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—Lawrence Balter (20th century)
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—Edmund Burke (1729–1797)