Dyevre, Arthur --- "The Europeanization of Social Justice and the Judiciary: How Will Judges React in the EU Member States?" [2011] ELECD 678; in Micklitz, Hans-W. (ed), "The Many Concepts of Social Justice in European Private Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: The Many Concepts of Social Justice in European Private Law

Editor(s): Micklitz, Hans-W.

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802604

Section: Chapter 13

Section Title: The Europeanization of Social Justice and the Judiciary: How Will Judges React in the EU Member States?

Author(s): Dyevre, Arthur

Number of pages: 22

Extract:

13. The Europeanization of social justice
and the judiciary: how will judges
react in the EU Member States?
Arthur Dyevre
If social justice is about protecting the weaker party in contractual relation-
ships ­ whether the employee or the consumer ­ then there are indeed some
signs of tension between the market-driven logic of EU law and the concep-
tion of social justice embedded in the law of the club's member countries. The
jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) appears to be the latest
flashpoint. In a string of rulings that have proved highly controversial, the
Court seemed to challenge long-standing social and labour policies that are at
the heart of the continent's social model. The Court's radical interpretation of
the freedoms of establishment and service delivery in its Viking,1 Laval,2
Rüffert3 and Luxembourg4 decisions have brought back fears of a race to the
bottom and caused consternation on the left as well as in union circles (Reich
2008; Scharpf 2009: 191­2; Adrián Arnáiz 2008 Dehousse 2008; Höpner
2009; Blanpain and Swiatkowski 2009; Erdmenger et al. 2009; Mayer 2009;
Schulz 2009).

1 Judgment of 11 December 2007, Case C-438/05, International Transport
Worker's Federation and Finnish Seamen's Union v. Viking Line ABP. (Holding a strike
against a Finnish employer that had tried to reflag its ferry as an Estonian vessel a
violation of the company's freedom of establishment.)
2 Decision of 18 December 2007, ...