OXFORD STUDIES IN EUROPEAN LAW SeriesEditors PAULCRAIG ProfessorofEnglishLawatStJohn’sCollege,Oxford GRÁINNEDEBÚRCA ProfessorofLawatNewYorkUniversitySchoolofLaw The Coherence of EU Free Movement Law Constitutional Responsibility and the Court of Justice OXFORD STUDIES IN EUROPEAN LAW SeriesEditors:PaulCraig,ProfessorofEnglishLawatStJohn’sCollegeOxford andGráinnedeBúrca,ProfessorofLawatNewYorkUniversitySchoolofLaw TheaimofthisseriesistopublishimportantandoriginalresearchonEUlaw. Thefocusisonscholarlymonographs,withaparticularemphasisonthosewhich areinterdisciplinary innature. Editedcollections ofessayswillalso beincluded wheretheyareappropriate.Theseriesiswideinscopeandaimstocoverstudies of particular areas of substantive and of institutional law, historical works, theoretical studies, and analyses of current debates, as well as questions of perennial interest such as the relationship between national and EU law and the novel forms of governance emerging in and beyond Europe. The fact that manyoftheworksareinterdisciplinarywillmaketheseriesofinteresttoallthose concernedwiththegovernanceandoperationoftheEU. other titles in this series EuropeanLawandNewHealth GoverningSocialInclusion Technologies EuropeanizationthroughPolicy EditedbyMarkLFlear,Anne-Maree Coordination Farrell,TamaraKHervey,andThérèse KennethAArmstrong Murphy JudicialControlintheEuropeanUnion TheLegalEffectofEUAgreements ReformingJurisdictioninthe MarioMendez IntergovernmentalPillars AliciaHinarejos TheEnforcementofEULaw TheRoleoftheEuropeanCommission EUCounter-TerroristPoliciesand StineAndersen FundamentalRights TheCaseofIndividualSanctions EuropeanAgencies ChristinaEckes LawandPracticesofAccountability MadalinaBusuioc FromDualtoCooperativeFederalism TheChangingStructureofEuropeanLaw TheFoundationsofEuropeanUnion RobertSchütze CompetitionLaw TheObjectiveandPrinciplesof ConflictsofRightsintheEuropeanUnion Article102 ATheoryofSupranationalAdjudication RenatoNazzini AidaTorresPérez TheEmergenceofEUContractLaw JudicialDeliberations ExploringEuropeanization AComparativeAnalysisofTransparency LucindaMiller andLegitimacy MitcheldeS-O-l’ELasser ParticipationinEURule-making ARights-BasedApproach RacismandEqualityintheEuropeanUnion JoanaMendes MarkBell RegulatingCartelsinEurope ConstitutionalPrinciplesofEUExternal SecondEdition Relations ChristopherHarding,JulianJoshua GeertDeBaere ReligionandthePublicOrderofthe CivilProcedureandEULaw EuropeanUnion APolicyAreaUncovered RonanMcCrea EvaStorskrubb The Coherence of EU Free Movement Law Constitutional Responsibility and the Court of Justice NIAMH NIC SHUIBHNE ProfessorofEuropeanUnionLaw, UniversityofEdinburgh 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxford,OX26DP, UnitedKingdom OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwide.Oxfordisaregisteredtrademarkof OxfordUniversityPressintheUKandincertainothercountries ©N.NicShuibhne2013 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted FirstEditionpublishedin2013 Impression:1 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,storedin aretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans,withoutthe priorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress,orasexpresslypermitted bylaw,bylicenceorundertermsagreedwiththeappropriatereprographics rightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproductionoutsidethescopeofthe aboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,OxfordUniversityPress,atthe addressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisworkinanyotherform andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer CrowncopyrightmaterialisreproducedunderClassLicence NumberC01P0000148withthepermissionofOPSI andtheQueen’sPrinterforScotland PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyOxfordUniversityPress 198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016,UnitedStatesofAmerica BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Dataavailable LibraryofCongressControlNumber:2013937976 ISBN 978–0–19–959295–1 PrintedinGreatBritainby CPIGroup(UK)Ltd,Croydon,CR04YY LinkstothirdpartywebsitesareprovidedbyOxfordingoodfaithand forinformationonly.Oxforddisclaimsanyresponsibilityforthematerials containedinanythirdpartywebsitereferencedinthiswork. ’ Series Editors Preface Niamh Nic Shuibhne has tackled an important issue that arises frequently within discourse concerning free movement law, which is the coherence of the complex caselawdevelopedbytheECJsincetheinceptionoftheEEC. ThestudyisgroundedontheassumptionthattheECJoperatesinthemodeofa constitutionalcourtandhastheresponsibilitiesassociatedwithsuchjudicialorgans. Coherenceisnotfelttodemandthatdifferentsectorsmustbetreatedinexactlythe samelegalmanner,butratherthatdifferencesarejustifiedbyprincipleddistinctions asbetweentheapplicationoffreemovementprinciplesindifferentareas.NiamhNic Shuibhne contends that four main factors have distorted the meaning of free movementcaselaw,andledtofragmentationofthecaselaw,irrespectiveofwhether thesefactors reflectgoodimpulsesornot.Theyaretheprotection offundamental rights,theproliferation ofprinciples,thecontestedpurposeoftheinternalmarket and free movement, and the structure of the Court and its decision-making pro- cesses.TheseproblemsarefelttobeexacerbatedbytheCourt’sreluctancetoengage withorreverseitspreviousdecisions,evenwhereitseemstobedepartingfromthem. Thediscussionisorganisedthematically,focusingontheprinciplesthatdrivethe developingcaselaw.Itisframedsoastoconsiderinturnthenegativeandpositive scopeoffreemovementlaw.Theformerconnotestheprinciplesthatareappliedin free movement law to exclude something/someone from the scope of the Treaty, therebyrenderingrecoursetoissuesofjustificationandproportionalityredundant. Thisincludesissuessuchasthehorizontalreachoffreemovementprovisions,and the status of the rule that wholly internal situations are not covered by free movement law. The latter, the positive scope of free movement law, is concerned withtheprinciplesthatdeterminetheouterreachofthelegalrulesinthisarea.The coverage focuses on the utility of the division between directly and indirectly discriminatoryrestrictions,andalsothemuchdiscussedissueconcerningtheextent towhichEUlawshouldcovernon-discriminatorymeasures. The valuable discussion in this monograph also sheds important light on other facetsoffreemovementlaw,whichshapeitsapplicationbytheEUcourts.Niamh NicShuibhnerevealsthetensionsthatplayoutinthelawinthisarea.Thus,onthe onehand,theTreatyexpressesjustificationargumentsasderogationsfromprimary rights, with the consequence that exceptions to those rights must be narrowly construed. On the other hand, it is clear that the arena within which justification argumentsareairedhasinrealitybecomehighlysignificantinitsownright,more especially as the scope application of free movement has expanded. This leads, as the author rightly notes, to a situation in which justification is in reality about balancingandweighing,notderogating. This book willbe ofinterest toallthose concerned with free movement inEU law. It has moreover broader significance for the way in which we conceptualize coherenceandtheroleofcourtsinachievingthiswithintheEU. PaulCraigandGráinnedeBúrca Preface Myresearchinterestinthepurpose,functions,andoutputsofcourtshastwomain dimensions.First,IwouldpointtothelegacyofJohnMitchell,thepioneerofEU studies at Edinburgh University and indeed well beyond, who developed a still- compelling rationale for the role of courts in democratic societies in his inaugural lecture for the Salvesen Chair of European Institutions, delivered in November 1968.ProfessorMitchellwrotethat‘[g]overnmentsandgovernmentalbodieshave as many reasons for conniving among themselves as they have for opposing each other and,inthe evolution ofgovernment, it is importantthat, withinacceptable limits,individualsshouldbeabletoparticipatethroughtheneutralmechanismsof courts not merely maintaining the framework of rules, but also advancing its construction’. He also observed that ‘there is a problem of discipline in govern- ment’,andarguedthatinwhathecalleda‘processofrethinking...thereisaplace for Universities, no matter what difficulties the tinge of politics may produce’. Centraltothatissue,hewrote,istheplaceoflawandcourtsinsociety. The second dimension is a more personal response, which has three main elements: the value of fairness, the importance of process, and both the merits andchallengesofinterpretation.Thereisalsoamoresubjectivedegreeoffaithand idealism,capturedbythewordsofAtticusFinchinToKillaMockingbird:‘[t]here is one human institution that makes pauper the equal of Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution...is a court. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but...our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I’m no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts....That is no ideal to me. It is a living, working reality’. Courts do not alwaysgetitright;andwhetherajudgmentis‘right’ornotandonwhatbasisare deeply contested questions anyway. But observing the way in which politics are actuallypractised, andregrettinginparticular theapparently diminishingvalue of statesmanship,myfaithincourtsasinstitutionsthathavethepotentialtodelivera deeper degree of fairness has become, if anything, reinforced. Of course, we also tendtoquestiontheinstitutionsinwhichwehavefaith—butnotfromexistential suspicion; instead, from the hope that they can simply be stronger and do even better. In her introduction to The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007), Natalie Angier drew from an inter- viewwithProfessorSusanHockfield,thecurrentPresidentofMIT,onthepainful process of writing. ‘“It’s worse than squaring a circle”, she said. “It’s squaring a sphere”.’ That description is difficult to better and books are the result of a particularlylongprocess.Itisinmanyrespectsalonelyonebutinthebestrespects it is not. I had the opportunity to deliver my own inaugural lecture at Edinburgh Preface vii University on 9 November 2012 and to acknowledge there my appreciation of, first, my colleagues, from both within and beyond Edinburgh. I am grateful, in particular,forthevaluedinsightsandcommentsreceivedonvariousdraftsofthese chapters from Tony Arnull, Thomas Horsley, Panos Koutrakos, Marsela Maci, Síofra O’Leary, Eleanor Sharpston, Jukka Snell, Isabelle van Damme, and Steve Weatherill;andforongoingdiscussionofthemainthemes,IamgratefultoDavid Edward. Thanks to my Edinburgh colleagues Alan Boyle and James Harrison for discussionofthe International Law Commission; toMiroslavaHulvanová forher careful assistance in finalizing the manuscript; to the team at OUP, especially to Alex Flach, Natasha Flemming, and Cheryl Prophett; and to Graeme Laurie. Second, I was also able to acknowledge at the lecture the support I have received in many ways over many years from friends scattered all over the place. Finally, I thanked the family I come from; but also, two other families that I am lucky enough to have, especially as someone who left where she came from: the family memberswhobecamemyfriends,andthefriendswhobecamemyfamily. NNS 28February2013 This page intentionally left blank Contents TableofCases xii TableofLegislation xxv ListofAbbreviations xxvii 1. Introduction:TheCourtofJustice,ConstitutionalResponsibility, andtheScopeofEUFreeMovementLaw 1 1. Introduction 1 2. TheCourtofJusticeandconstitutionalresponsibility 8 (a) Theresponsibilitiesofconstitutionalcourts 8 (b) ConstitutionalresponsibilityandtheCourtofJustice 12 (i) ThenatureoftheEUlegalorder 13 (ii) Normativeperspectives 15 (iii) Functionalconstitutionalism 16 3. Thesignificanceandscopeoffreemovementlaw 21 (a) Significance:whyfreemovementlaw? 21 (b) Stages:restriction,justification,andproportionality 24 (c) Scope:generalapproachandchaptermap 29 2. Coherence,Fragmentation,andtheFreeMovementCaseLaw 31 1. Introduction 31 2. Coherenceandfragmentation 31 (a) Fromconvergencetocoherence 32 (b) Themeaning—andlimits—ofcoherenceandfragmentation 36 3. KeydriversoffragmentationinEUfreemovementcaselaw 41 (a) Proliferation 41 (b) Themultiple—andunsettled—objectivesoftheinternalmarket 43 (c) Realizingtheprotectionoffundamentalrights 50 (d) ThestructureoftheCourt 54 4. Conclusion 62 3. TheNegativeScopeofFreeMovementLaw:‘Who-Based’Exclusions 63 1. Introduction 63 2. DefinitionalexclusionfromthescopeoftheTreaty 64 (a) Materialscope 64 (b) Personalscope:thebasicframework 66 (c) Personalscope:thesubstantivedimension 71 (d) Isthereahierarchyofrightsinfreemovementlaw? 74 (i) Thecitizen-worker 74 (ii) Thehuman(rights)dimension 81 (e) DefinitionalexclusionfromthescopeoftheTreaty: interimconclusions 84