Precedent and Judicial Lawmaking in Supreme Courts: The Court of Justice Compared to the US Supreme Court and the French Cour de Cassation

Abstract

AbstractWhy is it so difficult to qualify the Court of Justice’s decisions as ‘sources of law?’ Does the Court of Justice only ‘interpret’ law, or does it ‘make’ it? To what extent should its pronouncements be taken into account by others? This chapter shows how a particular theoretical approach to precedent and judicial lawmaking shapes the answers to the queries mentioned above. It examines a set of interrelated questions concerning precedent and judicial lawmaking by the US Supreme Court and the French Cour de cassation and then applies these findings to the Court of Justice. The questions are: first, in what sense is it said that these courts make law; secondly, who is bound by their pronouncements; and, thirdly, how does this binding force actually work? It is suggested that while the US and French systems have found ways in which to reconcile judicial lawmaking with the basic premises of their constitutional and political systems, especially by allowing other actors to respond to judicial lawmaking (in the particular sense of the word ‘lawmaking’ used in these two systems), the EU system is still waiting for a satisfactory answer.