law in that country, in our country this is governed by the European
Communities Act 1972. Due to this, if a member state fails to implement the
legislation into its own legal system then a citizen of the state envolved may
rely on that piece of legislation to help in a case EVEN though if it has not
been specfically implemented into the law. This was shown in Macarthys Ltd v
Smith (1980), this being the case by which Ms Smith took her employers to the
European Court of Justice (ECJ) as while she was employed by Macarthy's
Ltd she was paid only a fraction of the amount her male predecssor was
recieving for carrying out the same job, Ms Smith obviously won this case as it
was a breach of an Article in the Treaty of Rome stating that there should be
equal pay for men and women. This is just one of many example by which
citizens of member states have relied on Treaties to help them in their own
cases, therefore this makes Treaties primarily the most important source of
EU ( European Union) law.
The second form of source of European law is Regulations. Regulations
are when passed directly applicable into Member State law this being stated
in the Treaty of Rome : "Regulation are binding in every respect and directly
applicable in each Member State". This means that they automatically law as
soon as they are passed, this direct applicability was tryed and tested in RE
Tachographs : Commission v UK (1979), where the regulation was passed and
the UK failed to implement it into their law, this caused friction between the
Commission and the UK, and resulted in the UK being took to the ECJ for
disciplinary actions. However even though this form of law can seem a
painstaking process by respects to having to make it fit into the current legal
system it does enforce unity across the Member States.
The third of the sources of EU law is Directives, these are the main way
by which harmony is formed throughout the States. Directives are passed to
cover almost anything for example heal and safety of workers,insurance, etc.
However like regualtions its is Article 249 of the Treat of Rome by which the
EU is governed to issure directives. Although it may seem directives and
regulation are almost identical there is one key difference this being that
directives are only applicable to the receiptant and however there are still
given a time limit by which to implement it to fit into their law as with
regulations. Examples of directives are such as the Consumer Protection Act.
Also directives are split into two sections direct effect directives and
horizontal, with citizens not being able to rely on horizontal directives if the
member state fails to implement it where as they can with direct effect
directives. The final source of EU law is Decisions made by the EU and are
passed out to a state,person or even a company and this form of legislation is
binding only on the recipient, examples maybe be such things as granting
licences to export.
Even though all four of these forms of EU legislation are vital to help form and
achieve the goals aimed for and set down in the original Treaty of Rome, there
is also a lot of other things by which the Member States leaders participate
in, in the hope for harmony these being such things as global conferances and
meetings to discuss changes that may be required.
