UDK 341.645(4-672EU)
Biblid: 1451-3188, 19 (2020)
Vol. 19, No 72, str. 5-15
DOI:

Originalni naučni rad
Primljeno: 10 Feb 2020
Prihvaćeno: 19 May 2020

THE COURT OF JUSTICE’S CONTRIBUTION TO THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRINCIPLE OF TRANSPARENCY

MOKRÁ Lucia (Assoc. Prof. Lucia Mokrá, Ph.D., Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences, Slovakia), lucia.mokra@fses.uniba.sk
CAROCCIA Raffaele (Raffaele Caroccia, University of Naples, Department of Political Sciences, a Ph.D. candidate at Comenius University in Bratislava, Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences)

The legislative process in the European Union is complex and characterised by the strict legal framework in which it is implemented. The founding treaties provisions and related procedural acts have established the normative approach exercised within the trialogue of the main EU institutions – the European Commission, the Council, and the European Parliament. The position of the three main institutions developed with time and the biggest increase of competences is visible in the case of Parliament. Up until now, we can see the balance of legislative powers between the three institutions – the European Commission in drafting the legislation, and both the European Parliament and the Council in its adoption. Meanwhile, as a result of the proper implementation of legislative competences by the EU institutions according to treaties, there was formulated need to observe the principle of transparency to make the whole process of trialogue understandable and the subject of the external control of the Member States or EU citizens. This principle was more precisely interpreted in the last years, especially thanks to the attitude of the Court of Justice of the EU, by providing interpretation needed to understand that the formal cooperation between EU institutions in the legislative process cannot prevail the principle of transparency in their work and that the documents proposed in the legislative process have to be available for the public and the Member States. As the transparency principle was also set in explanation of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, we focus in the paper on the analysis of the progressive work of the Court of Justice of the EU in relation to the development of the principle of transparency according to competences assignment in the Lisbon Treaty, in different but connected areas of decision-making, the legislative process and ordinary legislative procedure. The main focus is on the ordinary legislative procedure, as the root of the transparency requested by founding treaties.

Ključne reči: principle of transparency, legislative process, trialogues, right of access to documents, Court of Justice of the EU