At the seminar Eduardo Gill-Pedro will discuss the distinction, made by Dworkin, between arguments of policy and arguments of principle. The former justifies a particular decision on the grounds that it advances or protects some common goal of the community, the latter justifies a decision on the grounds that it respects or secures some individual or group right.
In its case law on fundamental rights, the Court of Justice of the EU appears to conflate these two types of arguments, or to elide their distinctiveness. So, in some cases member, states are required to disapply national fundamental rights by reference to the need to protect the objectives advanced by a particular EU legal act. In other cases, member states are required to apply EU fundamental rights in order to advance particular objectives of EU law. Is this evidence that EU fundamental rights are to be seen as policies, rather than principles? If so, what are the implications of such an approach for the relationship between EU fundamental rights and fundamental rights as present in what Tuori called the ‘deep structure’ of the member states legal orders?
Speaker: Eduardo Gill-Pedro, Doctoral Candidate in EU Law, Lund University; Discussant: Mauro Zamboni, Professor at the Faculty of Law, Stockholm University
Time: 7 September 2015, Monday, 12.00 - 13.30
Location: Fakultetsrummet, plan 8, Juridicum, SU