Legal Control of Regulatory Bodies: Principle, Policy and Teleology
THE EUROPEAN LEGAL ORDER AFTER LISBON, p. 93, Patrick Birkinshaw and Mike Varney, eds., Kluwer Law International, 2010
25 Pages Posted: 1 Nov 2010
Date Written: August 1, 2009
Abstract
This chapter is concerned with legal control over regulatory bodies in the European Union (EU). The term ‘regulatory body’ is defined broadly to include all EU bodies and agencies, even if they do not have power to issue binding regulatory norms, provided that they nonetheless participate in the regulatory process to varying degrees. Section 1 begins with the availability of judicial review, with the focus being on those bodies where this was not self-evident from the wording of Article 230 EC, which provides an opportunity to examine the creativity of the ECJ and CFI. In section 2 the discussion then turns to issues of standing, followed in section 3 with the targeting of judicial review, whereby the EU courts have ensured that review is directed towards or can take account of the bodies that contributed towards the contested decision, even if they were not strictly the authors. The focus shifts in section 4 towards consideration of legal controls designed to address the issue of whether the EU should be involved in the regulatory process at all, which involves consideration of impact assessment and subsidiarity. The discussion in section 5 and section 6 deals with legal controls in two specific subject matter areas, standardization and competition, with the focus on issues of accountability and legitimacy as they arise in these areas.
Keywords: Agencies, Judicial Review, EU, Accountability, Access
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