Implementing Supranational Justice: Policymakers and the European Court of Justice

摘要本研究考察了欧洲法院——强大的超国家司法的最佳案例——对西欧医疗服务的影响——福利国家的最佳案例，政治上突出，与国内秩序紧密结合。自1998年以来，欧洲法院（ECJ），欧盟（EU）的最高法院和“世界历史上最有效的超国家机构”（Stone Sweet2005:108），已经开始将健康和社会保障纳入自由化的欧盟单一市场。现有的研究主要集中在解释欧洲一体化的情况，并绘制欧盟卫生保健政策的权力和责任的初步地图。本项目超越了这些研究，并将这一发展作为超国家司法对政策和实施影响的一个案例。它问(1)欧盟成员国对欧洲法院关于患者跨境流动和劳动监管的决定的具体政策反应有什么差异？2)如何解释欧盟成员国对发展中的欧盟法律反应的差异？回答第一个问题需要进行研究，以确定“合规”对不同州的政府意味着什么，以及合规的程度有多高。这不仅涉及政府对欧盟法律的解释，还涉及解释和适用大多数欧盟法律的国内法院可能采取的行动。对于第二个问题，从文献中得出了两个关于司法判决对社会影响的明确假设。一种是政治假设，即司法判决的成功是现有“支持结构”的一种功能——如果没有利益集团的支持和利用，判决的影响将非常有限。另一个是制度上的，来自“欧洲化”的文献。它将问题识别为拟合优度问题；各国将更快、更好地遵守那些不需要对现有制度进行改革的决定。这项研究将在西班牙、法国、德国和英国进行法律精英级别的访谈和法律文献分析。之所以选择这些国家，是因为它们代表了一系列相关变量——法律体系、卫生体系、官僚机构以及与欧盟法律和政策的历史关系。这在假设多、可靠指标少的情况下发挥了定性案例研究的优势。决策者对其法律权力和约束的看法是至关重要的，最好通过采访和相关法律的研究来获取。该提案的学术价值在于它对欧盟内外司法化问题的处理方法。对于欧盟来说，它有助于分析欧洲法院日益增长的权力及其实际影响——这种影响包括欧盟对福利国家的权力扩大，以及欧洲项目的潜在合法性或非合法性。更广泛地说，它应该有助于有关法院和官僚机构之间重要关系的少量文献，确定法院执行者的影响。更广泛的影响将来自两个方面。首先，欧盟法和福利国家是一个重要的话题，有足够的潜力参与当代欧洲的辩论。其次，该项目结合了从本科到博士阶段的学生研究，使学生接触到社会法律研究和欧洲政治。

AbstractThis study examines the impact of the European Court of Justice- the best case ofpowerful supranational justice- on the health services of Western Europe- the best casesof welfare states, politically salient and deeply wedded to their domestic order. Since1998, the European Court of Justice (ECJ), the top court of the European Union (EU) and"the most effective supranational body in the history of the world" (Stone Sweet2005:108), has begun to incorporate health and social security into the liberalizing EUsingle market. Existing studies have focused on explaining this case of Europeanintegration and on doing preliminary maps of power and responsibility in EU health carepolicy. This project goes beyond those studies and takes this development as a case of theimpact of supranational justice on policy and implementation. It asks (1) what variance isthere in the concrete policy responses of EU member states to the decisions of the ECJ oncross-border mobility of patients and labor regulation? And 2) what explains the variationin EU member state responses to the developing EU law?Answering the first question requires research to identify what "compliance"means to governments in different states and how much of it there has been. Thisinvolves governments' interpretation not just of EU law but of the likely actions of thedomestic courts that interpret and apply most EU law. For the second question, there aretwo clear hypotheses derived from the literature on the impact of judicial decisions onsociety. One is a political hypothesis, that the success of judicial decisions is a function ofthe existing "support structure"- that decisions, without interest groups who will supportand take advantage of implementation, will have very limited impact. The other isinstitutional, drawn from the literature on "Europeanization". It identifies the problem asa goodness-of-fit problem; states will comply faster and better with decisions that requireless change to existing institutions.The study will be conducted with legal elite-level interviews and legaldocumentary analysis in Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. The countrieshave been selected because they represent a range of relevant variables- legal systems,health systems, bureaucracies, and historic relations with EU law and policy. This playsto the strengths of qualitative case studies in a situation with many hypotheses and fewreliable indicators. Policymakers' perceptions of their legal powers and constraints arecrucial, and best accessed through interviews and research in the relevant law.The intellectual merit of the proposal lies in its approach to the issue ofjudicialization in the EU and beyond. For the EU, it contributes to the analysis both of therising power of the ECJ and of its actual impact- an impact that includes both extendedEU powers over the welfare state, and the potential legitimation or delegitimation of theEuropean project. More broadly, it should contribute to the small literature on theimportant relationship between courts and bureaucracies, identifying the effects of courtson implementers. The broader impact will come in two ways. First, European Unionlaw and the welfare state is an important topic with ample potential to engage incontemporary European debates. Second, the project incorporates student research fromthe undergraduate to doctoral level, exposing students to sociolegal research andEuropean politics.