¹ Weiler, Joseph H. H., A Quiet Revolution: The European Court of Justice and its Interlocutors, 26(4) Comp. Pol. Stud. 510, 515 (1994).Google Scholar

² Even though, as Cruz Villalón explains, “National Constitutional Courts have made a valuable effort at understanding and assuming the European integration dynamics without forgetting their particular commitment: domestic constitutional review.” See Pedro Cruz Villalón, La Constitución Inédita 67 (2004). Italics come from the original Spanish text.Google Scholar

³ See Stein, Eric, Lawyers, Judges and the Making of a Transnational Constitution, 27 Am. J. Int'l L. 1 (1981); Joseph. H. H. Weiler, The Transformation of Europe, 100 Yale L. J. 2403 (1991).Google Scholar

⁴ There is a wide variety of works relating to the reactions of the German and Italian Constitutional Courts to the doctrine of integration through law developed by the CJEU. See Kokott, Juliane, Report on Germany, in The European Court and National Courts-Doctrine and Jurisprudence: Legal change in its social context 77 (Anne-Marie Slaughter, Alec Stone Sweet, & Joseph H. H. Weiler eds. 1998); Cartabia, Marta, The Italian Constitutional Court and the Relationship Between the Italian Legal System and the European Union, in The European Court and National Courts-Doctrine and Jurisprudence: Legal change in its social context 133 (Anne-Marie Slaughter, Alec Stone Sweet, & Joseph H. H. Weiler eds. 1998).Google Scholar

⁵ See Vergottini, Giuseppe de, Oltre il dialogotra le Corti: Giudici, diritto straniero, comparazione 62 (2010).Google Scholar

⁶ Even the harder opponents of the CJEU jurisdiction have gradually changed their attitude. In the early days of the judicial dialogue, with the Solange and Granital rulings, it would have been unthinkable that either the German or the Italian Constitutional Court submitted a preliminary reference to the CJEU, but they have both finally yielded, acknowledging the CJEU's authority over EU law issues. While we were working on this paper for the conference in memory of Gabriella Angiulli, the German Bundesverfassungsgericht (Federal Constitutional Court) made a preliminary reference to the CJEU, in February 2014. The Italian Constitutional Court had historically been very reluctant to make a reference due to primacy issues, but it finally submitted preliminary references in 2008. Even the French Conseil Constitutionnel did so in 2013. The Belgian Constitutional Court, former Cour d'Arbitrage, began to submit preliminary references in 1997, the Austrian Verfassungsgerichtshof in 1999. The Lithuanian Constitutional Court did it in 2007, only three years after the incorporation of Lithuania to the EU.Google Scholar

⁷ SCC Declarations 1/1992 of 1 July and 1/2004 of 13 December. The first one made a previous constitutional review to the Maastricht Treaty. The second one did the same with the Constitutional Treaty.Google Scholar

⁸ Case C–399/11, Melloni, 2013 E.C.R. 2013.Google Scholar

⁹ S.T.S., Feb. 13, 2014 (No. 26).Google Scholar

¹⁰ See Pablo J. Martín Rodríguez, Tribunal Constitucional—Sentencia 26/2014, de 13 de febrero, en el recurso de amparo 6922-2008 promovido por Don Stefano Melloni, 48 Revista de Derecho Comunitario Europeo 603, 605 (2014).Google Scholar

¹¹ So it is suggested in the interesting proposal of Armin von Bogdandy, Matthias Kottmann, Carlino Antpöhler, Johanna Dickschen, Simon Hentrei, & Maja Smrkolj, Reverse Solange—Protecting the essence of fundamental rights against ED Member States, 49.2 Common Mkt. L. Rev. 489 (2012).Google Scholar

¹² See Gil Carlos Rodríguez Iglesias & Alejandro del Valle Gálvez, El derecho comunitario y las relaciones entre el Tribunal de Justicia de las Comunidades Europeas, el Tribunal Europeo de los Derechos Humanos y los Tribunales Constitucionales nacionales, 2 Revista de Derecho Comunitario Europeo 329, 354 (1997).Google Scholar

¹³ See, supra note 7.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Article 53.2 of the SC establishes that the individual appeal to the SCC should be a subsidiary procedure to protect fundamental rights. The initial claims should be submitted to the courts of the Judicial Branch. The only exception is made in Article 42 of the General Act of the Constitutional Court in relation to the resolutions of the Parliament which have no legal force and that might violate a fundamental right. In that case, the appeal can be directly submitted to the SCC.Google Scholar

¹⁵ As the Bundesverfassungsgericht did with the Data Retention Directive and the Telecommunications Act in a Decision (1 BvR 1299/05), Judgment of 24 January 2012. Nevertheless, the SCC had never been willing to analyze conflicts of this kind. See Miguel Azpitarte Sánchez, El Tribunal Constitucional ante el control del Derecho comunitario derivado 46 (2002).Google Scholar

¹⁶ S.T.S. Feb. 14, 1991 (No. 28). See Prado, Carlos Vidal, El impacto del nuevo derecho europeo en los Tribunales Constitucionales 183 (2004).Google Scholar

¹⁷ See Luis María Díez Picazo, El derecho comunitario en la jurisprudencia constitucional española, 54 Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional 255, 260 (1998); Fernando Álvarez-Ossorio Micheo, Cuestión de inconstitucionalidad y derecho de la Unión Europea: El Tribunal Constitucional como juez «ad quo». El caso español, in Recurso de Amparo, Derechos Fundamentales y Trascendencia Constitucional 116, 127 (José María Morales Arroyo ed., 2014).Google Scholar

¹⁸ Javier Pérez Royo, Tribunal Constitucional y división de poderes 103 (1988).Google Scholar

¹⁹ S.T.S., Dec. 20, 1999 (No. 240); S.T.S., Mar. 14, 2013 (No. 61); S.T.S., Apr. 8, 2013 (No. 71); S.T.S., June 18, 2013 (No. 116). See Javier Pérez Royo and Manuel Carrasco Durán, Curso de Derecho Constitucional 872 (2014).Google Scholar

²⁰ Díez Picazo suggests that this argument is similar to the one that has been usually given by the SCC to appellants who considered that a refusal by the judges to raise a constitutional reference to the SCC (Art. 163 SC) was a violation of the right to effective protection by the courts (Art. 24 SC). Only the reasons are different for EU law, as the SCC always stated that the preliminary reference procedure was none of its business. See Díez Picazo, supra note 17, at 262.Google Scholar

²¹ Note that, in this case, the SCC also meant to protect the fundamental concept of the submission of the judges to the acts of the Parliament, which does not allow them to set aside the national laws without the review of the Constitutional Court. See Campos, Paloma Biglino, La primacía del Derecho comunitario: la perspectiva española, 3 Revista General de Derecho Europeo 10 (2007).Google Scholar

²² In particular, SCC Judgment 194/2006 of June 19 was strongly criticized by the experts because of its ambiguity. See Ricardo Alonso García, Cuestión prejudicial europea y tutela judicial efectiva (a propósito de las SSTTCC 54/2004, 194/2006 y 78/2010, 38 Cuadernos de Derecho Público 11, 19 (2009).Google Scholar

²³ Sarmiento, Daniel, Reinforcing the (Domestic) Constitutional Protection of Primacy of EU Law: Tribunal Constitucional, 50.3 Common Mkt. L. Rev., 875 (2013).Google Scholar

²⁴ The Cilfit doctrine makes reference to the acte clair doctrine which sets the criteria for when national courts are not obliged to make a preliminary reference to the CJEU about the matter of interpretation of EU law. Case C–283/81, Srl CILFIT and Lanificio di Gavardo SpA v Ministry of Health, 1982 E.C.R. 1982.Google Scholar

²⁵ This is the point of view of Joaquín Huelin Martínez de Velasco, La cuestión prejudicial europea. Facultad/Obligación de plantearla”, La Cuestión Prejudicial Europea, IV European Inklings 44, 54 (2014).Google Scholar

²⁶ Prado, Vidal, supra note 16, at 188.Google Scholar

²⁷ And that constitutional relevance, related with the scope of protection of a fundamental right, made the SSC preliminary reference consistent with its former arguments about the relationship between EU law and its own jurisdiction. Luis Arroyo Giménez, Sobre la primera cuestión prejudicial planteada por el Tribunal Constitucional. Base, contenido y consecuencias, 8 Working Papers on European Law and Regional Integration 15 (2011).Google Scholar

²⁸ See, supra note 8.Google Scholar

²⁹ Case C–617/10, Åkerberg Fransson (February 26, 2013), http://curia.europa.eu/.Google Scholar

³⁰ Sarmiento, Daniel, Who's Afraid of the Charter? The Court of Justice, National Courts and the New Framework of Fundamental Rights Protection in Europe, 50(5) Common Market L. Rev., 1267, 1288 (2013); Sánchez, Pedro Tenorio, Diálogo entre tribunales y protección de los derechos en el ámbito europeo, 31 Revista General de Derecho Europeo 16 (2013).Google Scholar

³¹ The sentence also disappointed three justices of the SCC who delivered concurrent opinions. Critics of the SCC ruling can be found in Aida Torres Pérez, Melloni in Three Acts: From Dialogue to Monologue, 10.2 Eur. Const. L. Rev. 308, 330 (2014). See also Rodríguez, supra note 10, at 605.Google Scholar

³² Besselink, Leonard F. M., The Parameters of Constitutional Conflict after Melloni, 4 Eur. L. Rev. 531, 551-52 (2014).Google Scholar

³³ Case C–399/09, Marie Landtová v. Česká správa socialního zabezpecení, 2011 E.C.R. I-05573. See Ricardo Alonso García, Guardar las formas en Luxemburgo, 28 Revista General de Derecho Europeo (2012); Anagnostaras, Georgios, Activation of the Ultra Vires Review: The Slovak Pensions Judgment of the Czech Constitutional Court, 14 German L.J. 959 (2013).Google Scholar

³⁴ Article 53: “Nothing in this Charter shall be interpreted as restricting or adversely affecting human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized, in their respective fields of application, by Union law and international law and by international agreements to which the Union, the Community or all the Member States are party, including the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and by the Member States’ constitutions.”Google Scholar

³⁵ Besselink, supra note 32, at 533.Google Scholar

³⁶ S.T.S., Feb. 13, 2014 (No. 26). The arguments related to the interpretation of the CJEU ruling through Art. 10.2 SC are in para. 3 of the judgment. Justice Asua Batarrita criticizes such arguments in para. 1 of her dissenting opinion: “[T]he judgment of the Court avoids the central issues [related to the function and protection of the rights of the Charter]. Instead, it holds to a previous constitutional doctrine through which the Court had repeated that European law is not a constitutional issue, that the SCC has not the function of guaranteeing the application of Union law and that European law would only be relevant regarding article 10.2 SC, this is, in relation with the interpretation of the scope of application of the constitutional fundamental rights.” The Judgment has not been published in the Official Gazette yet, but it can be consulted on the SCC website.Google Scholar

³⁷ Arguments repeated by the SCC in its Judgments 253/2004, 61/2013, 71/2013 and 116/2013.Google Scholar

³⁸ See supra note 19.Google Scholar

³⁹ Case C–81/05, Cordero Alonso v Fondo de Garantía Salarial (Fogasa), 2006 E.C.R. I–07569. See Fernando Álvarez-Ossorio Micheo, El sistema multinivel de protección de Derechos Fundamentales. Un análisis desde la Carta de Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea, in La Unión Europea en perspectiva constitucional 113, 118 (Ana M. Carmona Contreras ed., 2008). See also Case C–177/10, Francisco Javier Rosado Santana v Consejería de Justicia y Administración Pública de la Junta de Andalucía, 2011 E.C.R. I–07907.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ See SCC Judgment 254/1993 of 20 July, the very first case about protection of personal data decided by the SCC.Google Scholar

⁴¹ See as examples SCC Judgments 11/1998 of 13 January; 202/1999 of 8 November; 144/1999 of 22 July or 159/2009 of 29 June. The exception could be SCC Judgment 29/2013 of 11 February, in which the pictures of an employee recorded by a security camera were not treated as right to personal image, but as right to protection of personal data. The relationship between privacy and personal data as fundamental rights in the Spanish constitutional doctrine is studied in Pablo Lucas Murillo de la Cueva, El derecho a la autodeterminación informativa: la protección de los datos personales frente al uso de la informática 26 (1990); Francesc de Carreras Serra, El derecho fundamental a la protección de datos personales, in Los nuevos derechos fundamentales 65, 69 (2007); or Reina, Emilio Guichot, Datos personales y administración pública 164 (2005).Google Scholar

⁴² The Directive was obviously taken into account in SCC Judgment 292/2000 of 30 November, in which the SCC had to decide about the constitutionality of General Act 15/1999 of 13 December. In other decisions, the SCC had just mentioned the Directive indirectly and together with a reference to the Covenant 108 of the Council of Europe. See as examples SCC Judgments 202/1999 of 8 November and 79/2009 of 23 March. In its Judgment 29/2013 of 11 February, the SCC only mentions the Directive after having made reference to the General Act and to the regulations which implement it in the Spanish system of law.Google Scholar

⁴³ S.T.S., May 9, 1994 (No. 143). Anyway, Díez Picazo considers that it would have been absurd to send a preliminary reference on this issue, as the Directive had not been enacted yet. Díez Picazo, supra note 17, at 262.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ T.S. Sept. 19, 2008 (Sec. 3).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ The same opinion is in Pedro Tenorio Sánchez, Tribunal Constitucional y Cuestión Prejudicial ante el Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea, 7520 Diario La Ley 1 (2010).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Another example is SCC Judgment 96/2012 of 12 June, a very interesting case about disclosure of personal data to a third party in preliminary proceedings in the course of a private law action.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ COM (2012) 11 final of 25 January 2012, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and the Council on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (General Data Protection Regulation). The Commission's draft and the information about the legislative procedure can be found in Pre-Lex database (http://ec.europa.eu/prelex/apcnet.cfm?CL=es).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Joined Cases C–468/10 and C–469/10, Asnef and Fecemd, 2011 E.C.R. I–12181.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Case C–131/12, Google Spain v. AEPD, (May 13, 2014), http://curia.europa.eu/. The case involved a Spanish citizen, Mario Costeja, who contacted Google with the following demand: each time his name and surnames were entered in the search engine, a link to a newspaper of 1998 appeared and he wanted that link to be erased. The information in question was a note about a real-estate auction connected with attachment proceedings prompted by social security debts. The data subject, Costeja, was mentioned as the owner of the real-estate. All the information was true and it came from an official source, so no objection could be made in relation to the newspaper publication, covered by the exception of Article 9 of the Directive in relation to journalistic purposes. But the data subject argued that the particular proceedings recounted in the newspaper had been concluded years before and were not of relevance or public interest in 2010. The fact that his name appeared connected to that ancient judicial process affected his fundamental rights, in particular his right to reputation in connection with his right to protection of personal data, so he claimed a right to be forgotten to be included as a consequence of Art. 8 ECFR. This case was crucial in defining balancing criteria in a really up-to-date conflict of fundamental rights.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Crowther, Hannah, Google v. Spain: Is There a Right to be Forgotten?, 9 J. Intell. Prop. L. & Prac. 892, 893 (2014).Google Scholar

⁵¹ We make reference to the article of Mattias Kumm in which he suggests that there should not be a final arbiter, but rather collaboration between the CJEU and the Constitutional Courts, in particular the German one, in a pluralist conception of European constitutionalism. See Kumm, Mattias, Who Is the Final Arbiter of Constitutionality in Europe?, 36 Common Mkt. L. Rev., 351 (1999).Google Scholar

⁵² Sarmiento, supra note 30, at 1299. The identification of the rights of the Charter with European citizenship is analyzed in Von Bogdandy, supra note 11.Google Scholar

⁵³ Javier Díez-Hochleitner Rodríguez, Cuestión prejudicial y política judicial, in La Cuestión Prejudicial Europea, IV European Inklings 164, 169 (2014).Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Furthermore, constitutional courts can put their privileged jurisdictions at the service of the Charter in order to reinforce the rights it enshrines in the domestic scene.” Sarmiento, supra note 30, at 1300.Google Scholar