Weatherill, Stephen --- "A Consumer’s Appreciation of the Contribution of Advocate General Francis Jacobs to the Shaping of the EC’s Legal Order" [2008] ELECD 224; in Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine (eds), "Making Community Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: Making Community Law

Editor(s): Moser, Philip; Sawyer, Katrine

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847201379

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: A Consumer’s Appreciation of the Contribution of Advocate General Francis Jacobs to the Shaping of the EC’s Legal Order

Author(s): Weatherill, Stephen

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

1. A consumer's appreciation of the
contribution of Advocate General
Francis Jacobs to the shaping of the
EC's legal order
Stephen Weatherill1

INTRODUCTORY REMARKS2
In a recent paper Kamiel Mortelmans made the following perceptive observa-
tion about the store of literature which examines the contribution of the
Advocates General to the shaping of the EC legal order: `The role of the
Advocates General in the development of Community law is discussed most
frequently by the Advocates General themselves and their legal secretaries in
articles and farewell addresses ... One advantage of this obviously is that
insiders know what they are talking about.'3
I am not an insider. It does not necessarily follow that I do not know what
I am talking about. However, it does follow that if Mortelmans is correct in his
view of the most fecund source of writing about Advocates General ­ and I
think he is ­ then I will be writing with a handicap. For since I have never
worked at the Court and since, in fact, my direct experience of its Luxembourg
home is limited to a very few visits, there is much upon which I cannot
comment. I am sure, for example, that an important quality of a successful
Advocate General is his or her ability to work efficiently and to meet dead-


1 Jacques Delors Professor of European Community Law, Somerville College,
Oxford.
2 This is a lightly edited and re-arranged version of a paper delivered at Middle
Temple in June ...