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National Judges as European Union Judges

Experiences, Knowledge and Attitudes of Lower Court Judges in Germany and the Netherlands

European Union (EU) law has an increasing influence on all fields of national law. In order to make sure that national judges can and will apply its rules, EU law has developed several legal principles. These are, for instance, supremacy of EU law, direct effect, ex officio application, effective judicial protection, and principles on interpretation of law. Accordingly, EU law has high expectations of how national judges should perform their task as so-called ‘decentralised EU judges’.

However, these expectations may not necessarily coincide with the way in which EU law is applied in practice or with the perception of the European legal order by national judges.

The project has been set up with the aim to study:

  • the experiences of national judges with EU law;
  • the way in which national judges are informed about developments in EU law;
  • the way in which they look upon the influence of EU law in one traditionally national area of law, private law.

The research indicates that most private law judges are not confident with respect to their knowledge of EU law. The current state of European law relevant to private law judges as well as foreseeable future developments, do merit an increased effort to strive for a better application of EU law. The results and recommendations have been presented during the presentation National Judges and European Union Law on 29 September 2011.

'We studied the experiences of Dutch and German private law judges with the application of European Union law. We concluded that the judges´ experiences in these two countries are broadly similar: EU law plays only a minor role in the daily work of most lower court judges. Furthermore, judges generally feel they don't know as much about European Union law as they should. However, that judges apply EU law only rarely has not necessarily to do with their lack of knowledge but has different reasons. Eventually, most judges see European Union law as just another set of rules they have to work with.' Tobias Nowak, University of Groningen

Project Leader

Researchers

  • Prof. Fabian Amtenbrink - Erasmus University Rotterdam
  • Prof. Marc Hertogh - University of Groningen
  • Dr Tobias Nowak - University of Groningen

Total budget: €175,095
HiiL financial support: €143,317
Matching: €31,778
Duration: February 2007 – December 2010

Contact information

Katarzyna Kryczka | Research and Programme Officer
+31 70 349 4406 | k.kryczka@hiil.org