Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Integrative Research Institute Law & Society (LSI)

Many legal scholars and practitioners consider the German judiciary to be a reliable and faithful interlocutor of the Court of Justice. German judges refer more and more constructive references than their peers in other Member States – or so the prevailing narrative runs. The present study seeks to dispel and correct this image as ref-erence champion. It identifies three challenges to the preliminary reference procedure in German courtrooms: a complex procedural framework restricting the discretion and obfuscating the duty to refer (1), a reluctant judiciary (2), and instrumental uses as a tool of judicial contestation (3). The study proceeds in four steps. Starting from a doctrinal perspective, it sketches the intricacies of the German pro-cedural framework and analyses how it may obstruct preliminary references. Taking a quantitative perspective, it places German refer-ences in relation to other indicators, such as population size, incom-ing cases, or the number of judges. Under such a lens, Germany finds itself at the lower end of the spectrum. This reluctance can be traced back to a bundle of factors, such as judicial hierarchies, workload, or lack of knowledge and trust. Shifting to a qualitative perspective, the study then explores the instrumental uses of the preliminary reference procedure as a tool of judicial contestation, both externally regarding the EU and internally regarding the German judicial architecture. The study concludes by focusing on a new actor in the reference game – the federal constitutional court. Its two senates have approached the preliminary reference procedure with diametrically opposed logics: the second senate underlines the power of the last, the first senate the potential of the first word. It remains to be seen whether the first senate will carry the day and herald – as a model for the entire German judiciary – a more cooperative future for the pre-liminary reference procedure.

Wenn Sie das Draft vor dem Vortrag lesen möchten, kontaktieren Sie Dimitrios Spieker vor dem Termin: luke.dimitrios.spieker@hu-berlin.de

Luke Dimitrios Spieker arbeitet als Postdoktorand am DFG-Graduiertenkolleg DynamInt an der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin und ist Senior Research Fellow am Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht in Heidelberg. Seine Forschungschwerpunkte liegen im Bereich des EU- und Verfassungsrechts, dem Schutz Europäischer Werte, Verfassungsidentitäten, des Dialogs zwischen europäischen und nationalen Gerichten und des Zusammenspiels von Unionsbürgerschaft und Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht der Mitgliedstaaten. Seine Arbeit wurde mehrfach ausgezeichnet, unter anderem mit dem UACES Best Book Prize, der Otto-Hahn-Medaille und dem Common Market Law Review Prize for Young Academics.

Das Werkstattgespräch wird mit dem Freie Universität Empirical Legal Studies Center (FUELS) kooperativ veranstaltet.