Constitutional pluralism and judicial cooperation in the EU after the Eastern enlargement: a case study of the Czech and Slovak courts
2011
Abstract
The chapter of the book analyzes the impact of the Eastern enlargement of the European Union on the common European constitutional space and the challenge it has posed to the theory of constitutional pluralism. After a brief overview of the theory and its recent criticisms, it conceptualizes two areas of judicial cooperation - formal and material.
Both areas are governed by different modes of cooperation - dialogue and bargaining respectively. it claims that as a consequence of the Eastern enlargement, material cooperation has broadened and dialogue has been increasingly overridden by bargaining. More and more, bargaining has trumped dialogue and diminished cooperation, thus endangering the very essence of constitutional pluralism.