Overview

The European Court of Justice has been celebrated as a central force in the creation and deepening of the EU internal market. Yet, it has also been criticized for engaging in judicial activism, restricting national regulatory autonomy, and taking away the powers of Member State institutions. In recent years, the Court appears to afford greater deference to domestic actors in free movement cases. Europe's Passive Virtues explores the scope of and reasons for this phenomenon. It enquires into the decision-making latitude given to the Member States through two doctrines: the margin of appreciation and decentralized judicial review.At the heart of the book lies an original empirical study of the European Court's free movement jurisprudence from 1974 to 2013. The analysis examines how frequently and under which circumstances the Court defers to national authorities. The results suggest that free movement law has substantially changed over the past four decades. The Court is leaving a growing range of decisions in the hands of national law-makers and judges, a trend that affects the level of scrutiny applied to Member State action, the division of powers between the European and national judiciary, and ultimately the nature of the internal market. The book argues that these new-found 'passive virtues' are linked to a series of broader political, constitutional, and institutional developments that have taken place in the EU.

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9780198844792

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Reviews

The book presents a major original contribution to EU free movement law and, in particular, the ongoing debate on judicial deference. * Dimitrios Doukas, University of Manchester, European Law Review *

Zglinski's book is a model example of legal scholarship engaging with social sciences' quantitative methods to describe legal developments as well as making the more traditional normative arguments of the discipline. The discussion of how the Court does and should administer the reach of its case law, and where it should carve out a role for member state institutions, is extremely timely and relevant. * Susanne K. Schmidt, University of Bremen, European Consitutional Law Review * The book presents a major original contribution to EU free movement law and, in particular, the ongoing debate on judicial deference. * Dimitrios Doukas, University of Manchester, European Law Review *

Zglinski's work provides various novel and innovative ways to look at the Court's case law. His well-argued and thoroughly researched book is a must-read for anyone interested in the architecture of free movement law. * Lars Klenk, Administrative Court of Berlin, European Public Law * Jan Zglinski has written an impressive monograph on the rise of doctrines of deference in the case law of the European Court of Justice. The book considers, from an empirical and constitutional perspective, the rise of doctrines of deference in the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on market freedoms. It will inevitably become a classic. * Filipe Brito Bastos, Legal Issues of Economic Integration * Zglinski's book is a model example of legal scholarship engaging with social sciences' quantitative methods to describe legal developments as well as making the more traditional normative arguments of the discipline. The discussion of how the Court does and should administer the reach of its case law, and where it should carve out a role for member state institutions, is extremely timely and relevant. * Susanne K. Schmidt, University of Bremen, European Consitutional Law Review * The book presents a major original contribution to EU free movement law and, in particular, the ongoing debate on judicial deference. * Dimitrios Doukas, University of Manchester, European Law Review * What the book powerfully offers is a reminder of why the internal market should remain of central concern to EU law scholarship. While this may no longer be the area where bold doctrinal innovation in EU law is being produced, the very maturity of internal market law makes it a most likely case (as political scientists would put it) for observing how EU law is evolving and how the EU's foremost court is facing down its key effectiveness and legitimacy challenges. Zglinski's book demands that we look again at what we thought we knew about the substantive law of the European Union. There are plenty of EU law books with nothing to say - this is not one of them. * Mark Dawson, Hertie School of Governance, Common Market Law Review *

Author Information

Jan Zglinski is Assistant Professor of Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on EU constitutional and internal market law, with a particular interest in empirical legal approaches. He is a Research Fellow of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law.

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