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Publishers Abstract:
Only two weeks after the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the EU's Van Gend en Loos decision, the Danish Supreme Court rendered a decision on the constitutionality of Denmark's ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. As in its previous decision on the constitutionality of Denmark's ratification of the Maastricht Treaty in 1998, the Danish Supreme Court in this decision affirms its position as the final arbiter of the legal validity of EU law in Denmark. The dispute in the case concerned a claim made by the plaintiffs that the Danish Government, when ratifying the Lisbon Treaty, had breached Article 20 of the Danish Constitution by not following the special procedure relating to transfer of competence to a supranational organization. The Danish Government countered this claim by arguing that Article 20 did not apply in the case of the Lisbon Treaty and that it was therefore sufficient to follow the general rule on government competence in international affairs, set out in Article 19 of the Constitution, according to which ratification could take place by use of a simple majority.
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