Abstract

BRITO, Miguel Nogueira de. A Comment on Miguel Poiares Maduro's “Crisis between Crises”: The Portuguese Constitutional Court's Jurisprudence of Crisis between Autarchy and Sovereignty. e-Pública [online]. 2017, vol.4, n.1, pp.43-52. ISSN 2183-184X.

According to Miguel Maduro both creditor and debtor countries' constitutional courts adopt an “autarchic” approach to legal argument that allows them to disregard the demands of EU law and endangers European integration. From the perspective of game theory one can say that in the strategic interaction between the different national courts each one is encouraged to adopt an “autarchic” approach to legal argument to the extend that it lacks any certainty that other courts will opt into a more dialogical attitude. The reason for this approach is possibly that the national constitutional courts do not acknowledge the presence of any institution at the Union level whose power is democratically legitimated and who is willing to adopt a distinctive political answer to the economic and financial crisis. Seen in this light national constitutional courts do not choose an “autarchic” approach to legal argument. Instead, they seem to be adopting a political sovereignty upholding jurisprudence. The problem they are confronted with it's not so much the lack of dialogue between internal constitutional values and EU law principles, as the lack of a democratic response (as opposed to a merely technocratic one) to crisis at the European level to engage with.

Keywords : EU Law; Stability and Growth Pact; European economic governance system; Portuguese Constitutional Court; European Court of Justice; Jurisprudence of Crisis; legal pluralism; sovereignty.

        · abstract in Portuguese     · text in English     · English ( pdf )