The European Union’s Demoicratic Legislature

Abstract

Abstract Assuming that the European Union (EU) legislative process lacks democratic legitimacy, legal scholars have argued that the EU should ideally exercise its authority through the judicial process. This chapter argues, instead, that the value of political legitimacy militates in favour of judicial deference to legislation. It explains why the justification of political authority is a normative and not a sociological or legal question and then argues that the proper content of this normative conception of legitimacy is input-oriented instead of output-oriented. More specifically, it elaborates a demoicratic conception of political legitimacy according to which the national peoples must have shared and equal control over the EU. It shows, finally, that the legislature has greater demoicratic legitimacy than the judiciary, thereby providing a strong justification for judicial deference to legislation.