Back and Forth Between Sovereignty and Constitutionalism: The Court of Justice’s Constitutional Case Law

Abstract

This essay seeks to explain the two contrary lines in the ECJ's case law: one that ignores some of the values of constitutionalism in order to assert mere primacy and autonomy (essentially being attributes of sovereignty) and another that seems to embrace constitutionalist values even if that arguably goes at the expense of autonomy and primacy. It does so in the context of the dynamics of the relations between the ECJ and national constitutional courts.