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Independent Discretion or Democratic Legitimisation? The Relations between National Regulatory Authorities and National Parliaments under EU Regulatory Framework for Network‐Bound Sectors
Author(s) -
Szydło Marek
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
european law journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.351
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1468-0386
pISSN - 1351-5993
DOI - 10.1111/eulj.12004
Subject(s) - parliament , legislator , prerogative , discretion , independence (probability theory) , democracy , regulatory state , law and economics , public administration , political science , law , economics , legislation , politics , statistics , mathematics
The E uropean legislator, being supported in that regard by the C ourt of J ustice, confers upon national regulatory authorities ( NRAs ) the exercise of the most important tasks concerned with the regulation of the network‐bound sectors, while at the same time guarantees NRAs a far‐reaching independence in exercising of their discretionary powers and shielding NRAs against other public authorities, including national parliaments. This, in turn, raises many doubts from the perspective of some essential constitutional principles of the M ember S tates, such as, among others, ‘the domain of the law,’ which reserves the regulation of issues sensitive to the citizens as an exclusive parliament's prerogative. It is submitted in this article that national parliaments should play a much more active role in regulating the network‐bound sectors. The main point is to strengthen the protection of fundamental rights of regulated parties and create the real democratic legitimisation of NRAs , while not undermining those regulatory objectives that are already accorded at the EU level.