User:Kaihsu/EUlawD4

Constitutional and institutional law of the European Union.

Section D: General principles of European Union law.

Chapter 4: Legal certainty.

Notes by Kaihsu Tai, 2011-01-07.

Clarity
Legal certainty, part of the EU legal order, “requires that legal rules be clear and precise, and aims to ensure that situations and legal relationships governed by [Union] law remain foreseeable”: Case C-63/93 Duff and Others v Minister for Agriculture and Food.

Individuals “should have the benefit of a clear and precise legal situation enabling them to ascertain the full extent of their rights and, where appropriate, to rely on them before the national courts”; this is not the case where a Member State does not transpose a directive correctly, despite case-law interpreting national legislation in accordance with the directive: Case C-236/95 Commission v Greece.

Non-retroactivity
“Although in general the principle of legal certainty precludes a Community measure from taking effect from a point in time before its publication, it may exceptionally be otherwise where the purpose to be achieved so demands and where the legitimate expectations of those concerned are duly respected”: Case 99/78 Decker v Hauptzollamt Landau.

Legitimate expectations
Where a producer “has been encouraged by a Community measure to suspend the marketing [of his products] for a limited period in the general interest and against payment of a premium he may legitimately expect not to be subject, upon the expiry of his undertaking, to restrictions which specifically affect him precisely because he availed himself of the possibilities offered by the Community provisions”: Case 120/86 Mulder v Minister van Landbouw en Visserij.

“The principle of the protection of legitimate expectations may be invoked as against Community rules, only to the extent that the Community itself has previously created a situation which can give rise to a legitimate expectation”: C-177/90 Kühn v Landwirtschaftskammer Weser-Ems. This is confirmed in Duff: “economic agents cannot legitimately expect that they will not be subject to restrictions arising out of future rules of market or structural policy.”