Examine the law making powers of the Community Institutions and the legal effects of Community laws.

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Examine the law making powers of the Community Institutions and the legal effects of Community laws

The four main EC institutions that will be focussed on in this essay are the Commission, the Council, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice.  While others exist, it is these four institutions that are of interest for the purposes of this essay as they are the main bodies concerning legislation. This essay will examine each of these institutions in terms of their makeup, relative legislative power and then discuss the legal effects of each of the major types of EC laws.

The College of Commissioners, more commonly known as the Commission, consists of 20 members each appointed on a renewable five year terms. According to the Treaty of Rome there must be at least one commissioner from each member state with a maximum of 2. The current convention is that the 5 larger states all have two commissioners, while the remaining ten all have one. Each commissioner is responsible for one or more of the twenty four departments, known as Directorates-general. The commissioners, while chosen by the member states, must remain independent and may not take instruction from any member government and must take a solemn vow as to this. The Treaties of Maastricht and Amsterdam have altered the appointment procedure by giving greater democratic legitimacy to the Commission by subjecting the process to Parliamentary scrutiny and approval.

Under the Treaty, the commission has two functions; to initiate proposals for legislation to be considered by the Council and the European Parliament, and to ensure that the provisions of the Treaty and EC law in general are implemented and applied. The wider roles of the Commission include representing the community on an international scale and the administration of funds in an executive role. It should be noted also that the decisions of the Commission are made mainly by a simple majority vote.

The power of the commission comes from its policy making function. Compared to the Council and European Parliament, the Commission has the main legislative initiative. This enables it to direct the policy of the Community by choosing what to propose legislation on for the Council and Parliament. In certain circumstances the Commission can also legislate on its own without the intervention of any other institution, however this is very rare. Policy is also clearly directed by the commission, as it is the college that will bring legal action against member states when they fail to implement EC law. So considering the Commissions ability to direct policy through legislative initiative and its role as enforcer of the Community laws, then it is clear how important the role of the Commission is in directing policy while not normally being able to act as a primary legislator, apart from certain rare exceptions.

The Council consists of political representatives of the member states each being represented by an authorised minister. Article 202 EC sets out the powers of the council, it is rather vague, but the main power of the Council is in its importance in the legislative process. Almost all legislative initiatives that come from the Commission must be voted on by the Council. The relevant form of voting is specified by the Treaty and is normally by majority, unanimous or by QMV, however following the changes wrought by ToA and the TN, increasingly more decisions are made by QMV. There is a major criticism of the democratic nature of the council as it is neither elected, the same as the Commission, and its deliberations are held almost always in private.

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The Council does have some legislative initiative as under Article 208 EC, it can propose that the Commission formulate legislation in certain areas and can also delegate powers to the Commission to pass further regulations in certain areas. However, the main power of the Council is in its role in legislation. As almost all legislation has to be voted on by the Council then it holds more power in passing legislation than the other bodies, but the extent of this has been altered by later treaties after Rome which make way for an increasing balance of power between the ...

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