Limiting Clauses: On the Continental European Tradition of Special Limiting Clauses and the General Limiting Clause of Art 52(1) Charter of Fundamental Richts of the European Union
Abstract In the Continental European tradition, provisions granting fundamental rights frequently include a written limiting clause such as art 11(2) ECHR: “No restrictions shall be placed on the exercise of these rights other than such as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society ….” Instead of the traditional system of special limiting clauses, in which provisions granting rights include their own limiting clauses, one finds in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union in art 52(1) a general limiting clause. The introduction of this provision is a welcome basis for analysing the nature of limiting clauses in general and the respects in which general limiting clauses differ from systems of written and unwritten special limiting clauses in particular. The formal requirement of limitation by law and the substantive requirement of proportionality prove to be the essential limiting criteria.
A proporcionalidade como princípio constitucional universal
Tanto no ensino do direito publico alemao quanto na praxis o principio daproporcionalidade se estabeleceu como um elemento essencial do principio do Estado dedireito. Porem, no plano internacional, o resultado e uma imagem mais diferenciada.Diante desse contexto de tensao entre o visivel sucesso do exame de proporcionalidade eo tom agudo das criticas, o presente trabalho analisa em que medida o principio daproporcionalidade e legitimavel como elemento de um constitucionalismo global – ou seja,como principio constitucional universal. Em foco estarao especialmente as objecoes quedeterminam o debate internacional mais recente. Esclarecemos a relacao entre o principioda proporcionalidade e concepcoes que entendem os direitos principalmente comointeresses ou trunfos, assim como o papel de argumentos de natureza moral no exame deproporcionalidade. Discutiremos tambem a objecao da incomensurabilidade, assim comoa objecao de que a proporcionalidade reivindicaria, em vao, uma precisao matematica. Aofinal, trataremos da relacao entre a proporcionalidade e uma interpretacao restrita ouampla do suporte fatico dos direitos fundamentais. No conjunto, o preceito daproporcionalidade e o instrumento metodico da ponderacao sao os melhores meiosdisponiveis para resolver colisoes complexas e dificeis entre direitos fundamentais. Oprincipio da proporcionalidade deveria ter um papel importante na linguagem unificada deum constitucionalismo global.
Law in a law-governed union (Recht in einer Rechtsunion) : the Court of Justice of the European Union and the free law doctrine
The Court of Justice of the European Union characterizes the Union as a Rechtsunion: a law-governed union. The conception of “the law” in Article 19 paragraph 1 of the Treaty on European Union transcends the Treaties, according to the Vice-President of the Court of Justice, Koen Lenaerts. This thesis demonstrates with reference to the work of Georg Jellinek that the Union is a non-sovereign state and, with reference to the work of Eugen Ehrlich in particular, that the state-based perception of law is a misperception. Not all production of law is reserved to the state and not all law is state-recognized law. There is extra-state law. It has been alleged that the Court of Justice of the European Union has had “a free law attitude”. The author discusses the free law doctrine developed at the beginning of the twentieth century and has made literal translations of writings in German, French and Italian by the main representatives of the free law movement. The free law doctrine provides a descriptive framework for the case-law of courts. The author describes the creation by the Court of Justice of four constitutional principles of Union law through its case-law. He concludes that every court is, to quote Hermann Kantorowicz, praeter legem law-creatively active and has, in that sense, a free law attitude. The decisions of judges are often volitional decisions. How the law will be applied should be predictable but volitional decisions, because they are unpredictable, are inconsistent with the principle of legal certainty. In the Union and its member states the judiciary and not the statute or “the law” is pre-eminent. The author suggests how the concept of law should be defined in a material Rechtsunion. He argues that societal legal norms could be provided with an appropriate position consistent with the principle of legal certainty by making the validity of a societal legal norm contingent on its material lawfulness.