Full Description
The onset of the 2004 EU enlargement witnessed a number of predictions being made about the approaches, capacity and ability of Central European judges who were soon to join the Union. Optimistic voices, foreshadowing the deep transformative power that Europe was bound to exercise with respect to the judicial mentality and practice in the new Member States, were intertwined with gloomy pictures of post-Communist limited formalism and mechanical jurisprudence that could not be reformed, which were likely to undermine the very foundations of mutual trust and recognition the judicial system of the Union is built upon.
Ten years later, this volume revisits these predictions and critically assesses the evolution of Central European judicial mentality, institutions and constitutionality under the influence of the EU membership. Comparatively evaluating the situation in a number of Central European Member States in their socio-legal contexts, notably Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Bulgaria and Romania, the volume offers unique insights into the process of (non) Europeanisation of national legal systems and cultures.
Contents
Prologue: The Westernisation of the East and the Easternisation of the West
Hans-W Micklitz
1. Introduction: Revisiting the Transformative Power of Europe
Michal Bobek
Part I: Judicial Reasoning
2. Formalism in Judicial Reasoning: Is Central and Eastern Europe a Special Case?
Péter Cserne
3. EU Law and Central European Judges: Administrative Judiciaries in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland Ten Years after Accession
Marcin Matczak, Mátyás Bencze and Zdenek Kühn
4. The Impact of EU Membership on Private Law Adjudication in Poland: A Case Study of the Polish Supreme Court's Case Law on Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts
Rafal Manko
5. The Aversion to Judicial Discretion in Civil Procedure in Post-Communist Countries: Can the Influence of
EU Law Change it?
Aleš Galic
6. The Remains of the Authoritarian Mentality within the Slovene Judiciary
Jan Zobec and Jernej Letnar Cernic
7. From a Discourse on 'Communist Legacy' Towards Capacity Building to Better Manage the Rule of Law
Boštjan Zalar
Part II: Institutions and Procedures
8. 'Euro-products' and Institutional Reform in Central and Eastern Europe: A Critical Study in Judicial Councils
Michal Bobek and David Kosar
9. The Impossibility of Being a National and a European Judge at the Same Time: Doctrinal Rifts Between
Hungarian and EU Administrative Law
Marton Varju and András György Kovács
10. Changes in the Level of the National Judicial Protection Under the EU Influence on the Example of the Polish Legal System
Nina Póltorak
11. When David Teaches EU Law to Goliath: A Generational Upheaval in the Making
Alexander Kornezov
12. Who are the Actors Mobilising Discourse among Courts?
Erhard Blankenburg
13. Transformation in the Eye of the Beholder
Matej Avbelj
Part III: Constitutional Courts
14. Invalidity of EU Law before the Polish Constitutional Tribunal: Court of Old Closure(s) or New Opening(s)?
Tomasz Tadeusz Koncewicz
15. Constitutional Sovereignty in Post-Sovereign Jurisprudence of the Czech Constitutional Court: From the Lisbon Judgments to the Landtová Ultra Vires Controversy
Jirí Pribán
16. 'Keeping the Faith' : The Trials and Tribulations of the Hungarian Constitutional Court in Following its European Vocation
Allan F Tatham
17. Central and Eastern European Constitutional Courts Facing New Challenges: Ten Years of Experience
Marek Safjan
18. Conclusions: Of Form and Substance in Central European Judicial Transitions
Michal Bobek
