Mendes, Joana --- "Discretion and law in the EU administration: where the courts do not enter" [2017] ELECD 890; in Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Ziller, Jacques (eds), "Accountability in the EU" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 144

Book Title: Accountability in the EU

Editor(s): Hofmann, C.H. Herwig; Ziller, Jacques

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785367304

Section: Chapter 6

Section Title: Discretion and law in the EU administration: where the courts do not enter

Author(s): Mendes, Joana

Number of pages: 34

Abstract/Description:

Recent high profile judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union (ESMA and Gauweiler) have endorsed the expansion of the EU’s executive powers, including of its administration. Once such powers are attributed or judicially endorsed, how far may law reach in structuring the exercise of discretion by EU administrative actors? The chapter analyses the way the EU Courts have reviewed administrative discretion in instances where they have performed a close scrutiny thereof. It argues that such review downplays the role law ought to have in structuring the exercise of administrative discretion, by overlooking the public interests that ought to be pursued by force of legal norms. By contrast, the control of discretion by the European Ombudsman illustrates a different and normatively more demanding understanding of how law may operate in relation to discretion.