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Publishers Abstract:
The decision annotated here deals with fundamental questions concerning the relationship between the French Constitution and EC secondary law. It has provoked a number of reactions in the literature, some saying that it was the affirmation of the superiority of the French Constitution over Community law, others denouncing the acceptance by the French Conseil constitutionnel of the primacy of Community secondary legislation over the national constitutional order. In fact the reading of this decision in terms of primacy of one legal order over the other does not seem entirely appropriate, since the Conseil constitutionnel has limited its intervention to defining its competences as they result from the terms of the Constitution. However, the Conseil constitutionnel, conscious of the likely consequences of its decision on French public opinion managed to defer publication for five days - until June 10 - in order not to interfere with the campaign for the elections to the European Parliament of June 12, 2004. On the same question (of the constitutionality of a statute law transposing a directive), this decision was followed, some weeks later, by others with the same statement of reasons, demonstrating that the Conseil constitutionnel is introducing a new line of case law.
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