The Court of Justice in the archives project : analysis of the Simmenthal case (106/77)

Abstract

The present paper explores the dossier de procédure of the Simmenthal case, decided in 1978 and through which the CJEU empowered national courts to set aside domestic provisions being incompatible with EU law. The analysis of the dossier guarded at the Historical Archives of the EU in Florence, allowed for a deeper and more comprehensive reading of the parties’ submissions and of the arguments presented before the EU judiciary. Furthermore, these original documents provided us with a clearer picture of the “legal context” in which the case was decided. The files showed an Italian government “jealous” of its constitutional prerogatives and a European Court ready to “seize the opportunity” to advance the integration process one step further. The dossier also confirmed the importance of lawyers in the evolution of the jurisprudence of the Court. The findings of this research can certainly be of interest for scholars working on history of the European integration process and Italian constitutional law.