Investigation of the institutions of EC Law. he main institutions of the European Community were primarily set up by the Treaty Establishing the European Community.
The main institutions of the European Community were primarily set up by the Treaty Establishing the European Community. The main objectives (Identified by Article 7) of the Community should be carried out by the following bodies: A Council, a European Parliament, a Commission, a Court of Auditors and also a Court of Justice. All of the above mentioned bodies are very closely linked and could be seen as inter-twined , this can sometimes lead to overlap, thus influencing each bodies decisions significantly. With all this in light, it can be seen that the European Community controls an institutional balance preventing the separate bodies from gaining too much power, contrasting to the classic division of powers identified by Montesquieu which will be later explored.
According to Montesquieu – ‘Charles Louis de Secondat’ (Who was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1689) was in-fact a famous French political philosopher. Montesquieu argued that the best government would be one in which power was balanced among three groups of officials. He thought England - which divided power between the king (who enforced laws), Parliament (which made laws), and the judges of the English courts (who interpreted laws.) Basically, what is known now as the ‘Separation of Powers’ One of Montesquieu’s most famous viewpoints on this was: “there would be an end to everything, if the same man ... were to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing public affairs, and that of trying crimes or individual causes.” Montesquieu held the belief that complete citizen freedom cannot be fulfilled if sheer independence of the executive, judiciary and the legislature from each other is not in place. In addition, he underlined the importance of the independence of the judiciary. Therefore the EC should be constructed in accordance with this theory if complete civil liberty is to be achieved. Nowadays though, the Community institutions can affect each other in a way that they breach the ideology of the ‘separation of powers.’
The European Parliament was created by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 to be the official legislative body of the Community. The total number of MEPs should be 732; however, since 1 January 2007 there are 785 MEPs. This is due to the inclusion of Romania and Bulgaria, as the allocation of seats does not take into account members that join mid-term. This is a very democratic body due to the fact it is selected every five years by members from EU countries, using what is known as proportional representation as in Article 190, leading to different numbers from the bigger/smaller countries within the European Union. “The fact that the EP is directly elected by the citizens helps guarantee the democratic legitimacy of European law.” MEP’s sit in Strasbourg and are grouped Europe-wide rather than in national groups. They have three main roles within the European Union. These are that they pass European laws, which in some cases is jointly with the ‘Council’ as stated in Article 251 ex Article 189b EC Treaty. The most common procedure for adopting (i.e. passing) EU legislation is ‘’. This procedure places the European Parliament and the Council on an equal footing and it applies to legislation in a wide range of fields. Parliament’s assent is required for certain important decisions, such as allowing new countries to join the EU. The second role which Parliament has is what is known as ‘The power of the purse’ this is whereby the authority is shared by Parliament with the Council in regards to the European Union budget, with this it means it can influence the spending. When this procedure has been followed through, Parliament can either reject on ideally adopt the budget, the approval process is known as ‘Granting discharge.’ The third role of Parliament is ‘Democratic Supervision’ which means it has the control over nomination of commissioners, and it has the right to fault the Commission as a whole. Overall then in most of the cases the Parliament cannot take decisions on its own and fully exercise its law making powers, Should also be noted that the European Council did not exist when the Community first came into existence. The basic role of the council was described as: “To provide the Union with the necessary impetus for its development . . . [and to] . . . define the general political guidelines”
