Last Thursday (26 August) the Federal Constitutional Court confirmed a 2005 ruling by the ECJ, limiting its own powers of revision.
Germany's Constitutional Court had in past rulings dealt with the question of how far its own powers of revision went with regard to rulings by the ECJ. Notably, its ruling on the legality of the Lisbon Treaty had implied a power of revision.
Critics had feared that, according to the same logic, the highest German Court would assume the position to limit the ECJ's competences and block further European integration through potentially anti-European rulings.
Instead, Thursday's decision confirmed an ECJ ruling from the year 2005 and said it was of no relevance whether the ECJ had made a wrong decision in the case under revision, which concerned labour law and the jurisdiction of the ECJ and national courts.
Constitutional oversight of the EU's activities was only permissible where the breach of competence levels was obvious and made a significant difference to the overall structure of competences between the EU and its members.
This means that only a series of decisions in which the ECJ overstepped its jurisdiction was worthy of revision through the German Constitutional Court. However, the court did not specify how many wrong decisions would justify its stepping in.
Jo Leinen, a German MEP (Socialists & Democrats) and former chair of the European Parliament's constitutional affairs committee, welcomed the decision and said that national courts and the ECJ ought to complement each other and not fight over competencies.
Only one of eight judges in the Federal Constitutional Court voted against the decision. Herbert Landau saw the ECJ as overstepping its competences dramatically.
Critics of the ECJ find its rulings too consistently in favour of further European integration. As they were not democratically elected, their task is to interpret laws and not make them, runs the argument.
