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Researching Legal Information in the European Union

Researching Legal Information in the European Union. Presented by Alison A. Shea Reference Librarian and Adjunct Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law. What is the European Union?. A “unique economic and political partnership between 27 democratic European countries”

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Researching Legal Information in the European Union

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  1. Researching Legal Information in the European Union Presented by Alison A. Shea Reference Librarian and Adjunct Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law

  2. What is the European Union? • A “unique economic and political partnership between 27 democratic European countries” • Primarily created to avoid any future inter-Europe wars and to encourage more cross-border cooperation in commercial matters (“internal market”)

  3. What isn’t the European Union? • Council of Europe • European Court of Human Rights • “Do not get confused” chart (that’s the real name of the webpage!) • http://www.coe.int/aboutcoe/index.asp?page=nepasconfondre&l=en

  4. Hypo skeezyJet Does this agreement fall foul of EU law? Two leading low-cost carriers, Scaryair (based in Dublin) and Skeezyjet (based in the UK) currently have an estimated 35% of the market share of the total UK and Ireland domestic routes. Scaryair approach SkeezyJet about the possibility of coming to some sort of agreement whereby Scaryair would agree to drop some of its UK domestic routes that SkeezyJet also operates in return for SkeezyJet agreeing not to start a new service from UK-Ireland. SCARYAIR

  5. Hierarchy of EU Law Treaties (Primary Legislation) Regulations, directives, decisions (Secondary Legislation) Treaties between Member States General Principles of Law Case Law

  6. Where to start?

  7. Europa – EU’s main info portal • http://www.europa.eu • Provides a gateway for locating EU information • Use this page to access various EU legal information portals • Search by Policy Area if you know what subject matter you’re looking for • Do a site-wide search if you’re not sure where to begin • Press releases are required to contain links to relevant docs

  8. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC If you are starting from scratch, try browsing Policy Area for relevant links Search function is not very good, but remember that press releases are now required to link to primary source documents referred to, so they may be useful If you have a citation, you can locate it through the links under Legislation and Treaties

  9. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC Links to relevant laws in this policy area Narrative description of the policy area—for the “average Joe” Links to relevant other sites, i.e. DG Comp

  10. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC

  11. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC

  12. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC

  13. LOCATING INFORMATION ON A TOPIC

  14. Example #1 • I’m looking for legislation that deals with Bathing Water quality. I don’t have a cite, and don’t know how exactly it’s regulated or by whom. • When you are looking for general policy, try starting with Europa • Remember that press releases are now required to contain links to the relevant documents, so try searching the site • Also, you can browse the “Policy Areas” to try and locate the relevant DG for that topic

  15. From the main Europa page, you can either search the site for relevant hits, or browse through the policy areas to locate the relevant DG for this area

  16. At the bottom of the press release are links to the documents mentioned—which show that the relevant DG is Environment—and also the citations to the relevant legislation

  17. This is the relevant DG for bathing water quality—you can now browse for links to relevant legislation and other policy documents

  18. Where do we find EU legal information?

  19. Primary legislation: Treaties • Source of primary legislation • Current treaties in force: • Consolidated Treaty on European Union (TEU) • Consolidated Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) • Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU • All treaties can be found here: • http://eur-lex.europa.eu/JOHtml.do?uri=OJ:C:2010:083:SOM:EN:HTML

  20. Treaty of Lisbon • What’s the big deal? • Greater democracy and transparency • Simplification and more efficient working • Single voice on the international stage • Promoting rights and values • Key issues to watch will be what the EU does with increased power in foreign policy and justice, freedom and security

  21. Treaty of Lisbon • Completely renumbers existing Treaty articles • ECJ recommends references to an article of the Treaty as it stood before 1 May 1999, the revised numbering should be given in brackets, e.g. ‘Article 85 of the EC Treaty (now Article 81 EC)’. • References to the Treaty as it stands after 1999 should read ‘Article 234 EC’. • “Table of Equivalencies” for old and new article numbers available here: • 2010 OJ(C 83) 361

  22. This page has not been updated!!!! Still lists Articles 81-89 instead of 101-109!!

  23. BB translation: 2010 O.J. (C 83) 88

  24. Official Journal • The OJ has been published since 1967 • two main series: • L (Legislation) • C (Communication = Information and Notices). • published daily in 22 of the 23 official languages. • Available on Eur-Lex • You can now get PDFs back to 1973 in English, 1968 for original EC languages • “Certified” PDF version available—on the way to becoming “authentic” versions

  25. Example #3 • Can I get a full text version of the following cite: 1990 O.J. (L 180) 26 • Since you already have the OJ cite, use Eur-Lex to search by OJ reference and simply fill in the relevant information: • Year: 1990 • OJ Series: L • OJ Number: 180 • Page: 26

  26. To get the authentic full-text scan of the original document, click on PDF

  27. Secondary Legislation • Regulations • binding legal force throughout every Member State • Directives • lay down certain end results that must be achieved in every Member State • national authorities have to adapt their laws to meet these goals, but are free to decide how to do so. • may concern one or more Member States, or all of them. • Decisions • Binding in entirety but only to those Member States or entities to whom addressed • Recommendations/Opinions • No binding force

  28. How to Find EU Legislation • Eur-Lex • Retrieve by citation if you have it already • Try using the Directory of Legislation in Force to browse through topical areas • Europa • Summary of EU Legislation in force • Through the relevant Commission group’s website • List of relevant DG sites: • http://ec.europa.eu/about/ds_en.htm • Lexis (EURCOM;LEGIS) • Westlaw (EU-LEG)

  29. Example #4 • Locate Directive 2011/7/EU. What is it about? • Since you have the document number already, simply go to Eur-Lex and search by document number • Is it published in an official source? • The Official Journal is the official source for all EU legislation

  30. Select PDF for official full text version

  31. Official full text version—to create cite, note data above: year 2011, journal series: L, journal volume 48, page 1.

  32. DIRECTORY OF EU LEGISLATION IN FORCE Use Directory of EU legislation in force when you wish to browse relevant law for a particular topic

  33. Each topic breaks down even further to more discrete topics; however results are listed in reverse chronological order, not in order of importance to that topic

  34. RETRIEVING LEGISLATION Easiest way to retrieve legislation by citation—by document number. You will still retrieve to the OJ version

  35. RETRIEVING LEGISLATION You can retrieve not only legislation but also preparatory docs, case law, and national execution measures by citation here

  36. RETRIEVING LEGISLATION Select Bibliographic notice for “annotations”—if this were a directive, always select this feature to locate national implementing legislation Select PDF for official full text version from OJ

  37. “ANNOTATIONS” Affected by case: Case law that litigates this particular piece of legislation CELEX numbers “6” stands for Sector 6, which is case law

  38. “ANNOTATIONS” Procedure = Legislative History Relationship between documents= where to find amendments

  39. Tracking EU legislation • To track pending/proposed legislation (similar to Thomas in the US), use these sources which have the same information, just organized by two different groups • Pre-Lex • http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/apcnet.cfm?CL=en • Legislative Observatory • http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/index.jsp?language=en

  40. European Commission – COM docs • The EC is the only body who can propose legislation, and they do this in the form of a COM document • There is usually a lengthy period of consultation and amendment before COM Documents become public, and only the final version is published. Consequently, they are cited in the format: • COM (year) running number, final

  41. Where to find EC documents • Registry of Commission Documents • Pre-Lex or Legislative Observatory • Eur-Lex • All of the above sources allow for retrieval by citation • If you do not know what you are looking for but prefer to browse, try the Commission page for the policy area

  42. COM Docs through PRE-LEX

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