The Court was established in 1952, by signing of the Treaty of Paris, for the European Coal and Steel Community. With the Treaty of Rome in 1957, the Court got the official the name as ‘’the European Court of Justice’’ within the European Community. The creation of the European Union with the Treaty of Amsterdam in 1997 did not change the name of the institution but gave ECJ privilege responsibilities and powers as a separate, independent and an official institute.

The ECJ is composed of 27 judges, 1 judge per member state, and 8 Advocate Generals. The judges and advocate generals are  appointed  by  common  accord  by  the  government of their member states. Their duration of work is renewable and 6 years. The  appointment of  judges  based on  their independency and high qualifications. The Advocate Generals assist the courts through giving their impartial and independent opinions about the cases that they assigned.

The  European Court of  Justice  functions as an  independent  judicial  body. This  means  that, they  do  not represent any interest  group  or  any  member  state  within  the  European  Union  and  their  main  task is to ensure the application and interpretation of the laws of the Treaties within the EU member states.

ECJ  aims to interpret  EU law making (legislative system)  to be applied in  the same manner in whole member states.  For that  reason  decisions of  ECJ  are binding on all member states. ECJ  also  tries to find comprehensive solutions in case of settlement of disputes between the persons, institutions, states and private businesses.

There  are  five  types of  proceedings, which  help ECJ  to define  its  jurisdiction in order to  fulfil  its  tasks properly. These proceedings ca be defined as:

• References for Preliminary Rulings: The Court  of  Justice  cooperates  with  the courts of  the  Member  States in order to ensure  the  effective  and uniform application of  the Community legislation and  to prevent divergent  interpretations. The national  courts  may  demand from the Court of Justice to clarify a point concerning the interpretation of Community law for example, whether their national legislation is inconformity with the EU law.
• Actions for failure to fulfil obligations: The ECJ has a function of determining whether a member state fulfils its obligation in accordance with the EU law.
• Actions for failure to act: ECJ reviews the failures of the Community Institutions.
• Appeals
• Reviews: Sometimes, ECJ reviews the decisions of the European Court of First Instance.

The  Court of First Instance (CFI) was set up in 1988 in order to reduce the workload on ECJ. It is composed of 27 judges, 1 judge per member  state with  the agreement by  their member state with  renewable  duration of six months. There are no permanent advocate generals in the CFI.
The judicial system of European Union plays an important role of organizing member states with divergent judicial traditions and  interpretations. Uniform applications of  EU laws in all member states are essential  to  have a  consistent and a stable regime within the EU.

Aslihan Engin

Hamburg Üniversitesi

23.04.08

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