Activation of theUltra ViresReview: TheSlovak PensionsJudgment of the Czech Constitutional Court

Abstract

It is now almost two decades since the German Constitutional Court proclaimed inMaastrichtits capacity to review whether the Union institutions respect the limits of their conferred competences and to pronounce inapplicable at national level all legal instruments adopted by them in transgression of these boundaries. Thisultra viresdoctrine inspired the case law of several other constitutional courts, which announced their intention to operate in exceptional circumstances as anultima ratioagainst the violation by the Union institutions of the principle of conferral. The German Constitutional Court itself emphatically reaffirmed on various occasions its role as the ultimate protector of constitutionality against theultra viresintroduction and interpretation of Union law, most prominently in its eminentLisbonruling. Until recently though, there was no actual precedent of a national court proclaiming a Union act asultra vires.Even when a constitutional court reviewed the contested act onultra viresgrounds, it eventually concluded that it complied with the principle of conferred powers.