Conflict of Laws
European Union law is applied by the courts of member states and where the laws of member states provide for lesser rights than European Union law, European Union law can be enforced by the courts of member states. In case of European Union law which should have been transposed into the laws of member states, such as Directives, the European Commission can take proceedings against the member state under the EC Treaty. The Court of Justice of the European Union is the highest court able to interpret European Union law. European Union law which can be directly enforced by courts in member states is said to have direct effect.
Simon Hix argues that direct effect and the supremacy doctrine has transformed the EU from an international organisation to a "quasifederal polity". According to J.H.H. Weiler, parallels to the architecture of the European Union can be found only in the internal constitutional order of federal states. Sergio Fabbrini argues that the European Union developed after the two world wars as Europe moved towards supernationalism with a multi-level system of governance. Vertical federalisation is mixed with horizontal separation of powers between the European Community institutions and therefore the EU does not conform to the structures of a conventional federal system.
Read more about this topic: Social Chapter
Famous quotes containing the words conflict and/or laws:
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.”
—Winston Churchill (18741965)
“We agree fully that the mother and unborn child demand special consideration. But so does the soldier and the man maimed in industry. Industrial conditions that are suitable for a stalwart, young, unmarried woman are certainly not equally suitable to the pregnant woman or the mother of young children. Yet welfare laws apply to all women alike. Such blanket legislation is as absurd as fixing industrial conditions for men on a basis of their all being wounded soldiers would be.”
—National Womans Party, quoted in Everyone Was Brave. As, ch. 8, by William L. ONeill (1969)