All legal texts tell us stories in many ways. What stories, what narratives, can be found in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union? This book invites the reader to think of the world of EU law as a creative process. From such a perspective, the adjudicative praxis of the Court is an intellectual, cultural, literary activity, in which the reader can imagine him- or herself participating.
The author develops a novel hermeneutic methodology to examine the textual performance of the Court, by combining the work of American ‘Law and Literature’ scholar James Boyd White with the work of French philosopher Paul Ricoeur.
This methodology allows for an analysis of the role played by the Court in its legal reasoning and the vision of humanity it demonstrates: narratives of ‘self’ and ‘other’.
The synthesis of two case studies (on economically inactive EU citizens’ access to social benefits, and on data protection and privacy) results in an open-ended and self-reflective examination of the narratives about human agency and human responsibility in the case law of the Court of Justice European Union.
Pauline Phoa holds law degrees (LL.Ms) from Utrecht University and Columbia Law School in New York. She started her career as a legal assistant at the General Court of the EU in Luxembourg then proceeded to work as a lawyer in EU and international law at a law firm in Amsterdam, and as EU law advisor for the EU litigation team of the Dutch Ministry for Foreign Affairs. In 2014, she joined Utrecht University towork on her PhD research, resulting in this publication. Since finishing her dissertation, Pauline works as assistant professor and post-doctoral researcher in EU law at Utrecht University.
Contents ix
About the author xv1
chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Law as a creative praxis 2
1.2 Problem statement: balancing the economic interests of the
internal market with fundamental rights protection 3
1.3 Aim of the study and main research question 5
1.3.1 James Boyd White and Paul Ricoeur 5
1.3.2 Main research question 6
1.3.3 Audience and voice 7
1.4 The case studies 7
1.5 Academic context 9
1.5.1 Literature review: balancing the EU internal market and
fundamental rights protection 9
1.5.2 Literature review: the ECJ’s legal reasoning 11
1.5.3 Literature review: ‘Law and Literature’ and its place in (post)
modern legal theory 13
1.5.4 A ‘Law and Literature’ approach for EU law 17
1.6 The structure of the book 20
Part 1 Theory
chapter 2 A Hermeneutic Approach for EU Law
2.1 The phenomenology of legal practice 26
2.2 The beginning of the interpretative exercise – preliminary
issues 28
2.2.1 Law and language: two views 28
2.2.2 Hermeneutics: aim and method 33
2.2.3 Implications for a methodology 38
2.3 Prefiguration – pre-understandings 41
2.4 Configuration 45
2.4.1 A process of close reading 45
2.4.2 Narrative and narratology 49
2.4.3 Configuration in EU law 52
2.5 Refiguration 54
2.5.1 ‘Being-in-the-world’ 54
2.5.2 Documenting a reading experience 55
2.5.3 Reading and (subsequent) writing: ethics 57
2.6 Concluding remarks 61
Part II Prefiguration
chapter 3 The ECJ’s Institutional ‘Self’
3.1 Pre-understandings for the ECJ’s legal reasoning 66
3.2 Formal provisions and arrangements 68
3.2.1 Treaty provisions 68
3.2.2 Judges and AGs 69
3.2.3 Other components of the ECJ 70
3.3 Types of procedures 71
3.4 Elements of work process, culture and tradition 73
3.4.1 No docket control: time pressures 73
3.4.2 Tradition and precedent 74
3.4.3 Multilingualism 75
3.4.4 The many hands working on ECJ judgments 79
3.4.5 The Role of the AG’s Opinion 81
3.4.6 Collegiate decisions: unity of voice 82
3.5 Argumentative style – internal and external expectations 87
3.5.1 Formal provisions and practices 87
3.5.2 Internal and external expectations: literature review 89
3.6 The ECJ’s self 98
3.7 Conclusion 100
chapter 4 Prefiguration of the Internal Market and Fundamental Rights
4.1 Pre-understandings for internal market and fundamental rights case law 104
4.2 Historical background of the EU internal market 105
4.2.1 Founding the EEC – 1950s-1960s 106
4.2.2 Developing the internal market – 1970s-1990s 109
4.2.3 Lisbon Treaty reforms: a ‘social market economy’? 112
4.3 History of fundamental rights protection in the EU legal order 114
4.3.1 The development of fundamental rights protection 114
4.3.2 The Lisbon Treaty and the Charter 117
4.4 Schemes for adjudication of the internal market and fundamental rights 120
4.4.1 Schemes for legal reasoning 120
4.4.2 The classic EU free movement scheme 120
4.4.3 The Charter scheme 121
4.4.4 Subconclusion: the problem of the indeterminacy of actual reasoning 122
4.5 Academic debate on the relationship between the EU internal market and fundamental rights: an overview 123
4.6 Revisiting narrative theory 131
4.7 A narrative of ‘the market’ 133
4.8 A narrative of human rights 135
4.9 Conclusion 139
Part III Configuration
chapter 5 Case Study on Economically Inactive EU Citizens’ Access to Social Benefits
5.1 A close reading of EU citizenship case law 144
5.2 Prefiguration: the development of EU citizens’ social rights 147
5.2.1 1957- 1990s – free movement of workers and persons 148
5.2.2 1992 – early 2000s: putting flesh on the bones of EU citizenship 149
5.2.3 2004-2014: adoption of the Citizens’ Directive and continuation of the ECJ’s approach 153
5.3 Configuration: reading Grzelczyk and Dano 155
5.3.1 Grzelczyk – summary 155
5.3.2 Grzelczyk – facts 156
5.3.3 Grzelczyk – legal reasoning 157
5.3.4 Subconclusion 159
5.3.5 Dano – summary 161
5.3.6 Dano – facts 161
5.3.7 Dano – legal reasoning 163
5.4 From configuring to refiguring the EU citizenship legalnarrative: comparing Grzelczyk and Dano 168
5.4.1 Comparison of the introduction of the protagonists 168
5.4.2 Comparison of the legal reasoning 171
5.5 Concluding observations 176
chapter 6 Case Study on Personal Data Protection and Privacy
6.2 Prefiguration: legislative framework and case law 181
6.2.1 Legal framework – historical development 181
6.2.2 The ECHR and the ECtHR on privacy and data protection 184
6.2.3 ECJ case law on privacy and data protection 186
6.2.4 Subconclusion on prefiguration 189
6.3 Configuration: reading Digital Rights Ireland and Google Spain 189
6.3.1 Summary Digital Rights Ireland 189
6.3.2 The ECJ’s ‘self’ in Digital Rights Ireland 191
6.3.3 Articulation by ECJ of dangers of mass surveillance 195
6.3.4 Control and territoriality 196
6.3.5 Google Spain: preliminary observations 197
6.3.6 Google Spain: summary 198
6.3.7 The notion of ‘control’: articulation of what search engines do 199
6.3.8 Territorial scope of the DPD: ‘context of activities’ 203
6.3.9 Extent of responsibilities of search engine operator 204
6.4 From configuration to refiguration – comparing Digital Rights Ireland and Google Spain 208
6.4.1 Comparability 208
6.4.2 The ECJ’s ‘self’: a fundamental rights ‘champion’ and its rhetoric 209
6.4.3 The ‘other’: data subjects and a worldview 210
6.5 Refiguration in data protection 211
6.5.1 Resources for meaningful speech offered by Digital Rights Ireland and Google Spain 211
6.5.2 Schrems I 212
6.5.3 DPD to GDPR 215
6.5.4 The Digital Rights Ireland/Schrems I line 216
6.5.5 The Google Spain line of cases 217
6.6 Conclusion 220
Part IV Refiguration
chapter 7 Synthesis
7.1 Goal of this chapter 226
7.2 The ECJ’s self 227
7.2.1 A ‘self’ in narrative and rhetoric 227
7.2.2 The ECJ’s self in data protection case law 228
7.2.3 The ECJ’s self in the case law on EU citizens’ access to social benefits 229
7.2.4 Comparison of the relationship between primary and secondary law 230
7.2.5 Other elements 232
7.2.6 Comparing the case law on EU citizens and data protection – explaining differences 235
7.2.7 Subconclusion on the ECJ’s self 238
7.3 Vision of humanity – ‘the other’ 239
7.3.1 Introduction 239
7.3.2 A vision of humanity in case law on EU citizens’ access to social benefits 240
7.3.3 A vision of humanity in data protection case law 241
7.3.4 Comparison and searching for explanations 241
7.4 Imputability and voice 246
chapter 8 Concluding Observations
8.1 Adjudication: a creative ‘praxis’ 250
8.2 Explaining and understanding: pre-, con- and refiguration 251
8.3 Prefiguration 252
8.3.1 The Court of Justice 253
8.3.2 Internal market versus fundamental rights 254
8.3.3 Reflections on the stage of prefiguration 254
8.4 Configuration: case studies 255
8.4.1 EU citizens’ access to social benefits 256
8.4.2 The rights to data protection and privacy 256
8.5 Moving from configuration to refiguration: synthesis 257
8.6 Answering the main research question 260
8.7 One more thing… 263
Bibliography 268
Table of Cases 288