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Comparative Institutional Analysis, the European Court of Justice and the General Principle of Non‐Discrimination—or—Alternative Tales on Equality Reasoning
Author(s) -
Croon Johanna
Publication year - 2013
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.12018
Subject(s) - scrutiny , economic justice , underpinning , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , law , law and economics , sociology , political science , mathematics , statistics , civil engineering , engineering
The general principle of equality in E uropean law is often held to be inconsistently applied by the E uropean C ourt of Justice ( ECJ ) and insufficiently supported by methodology. Contrary to this assessment, this paper argues that there is substantial coherence and theoretical underpinning to the court's equality reasoning. First, it shows that the respective case‐law can be subdivided into three groups, depending on the level of scrutiny applied. Second, it establishes that the prevailing accounts have difficulty in explaining the court's choice of scrutiny due to their limited selection of analytical parameters. Third, it concludes that comparative institutional analysis offers an alternative framework to make the ECJ 's testing approaches in equality matters more intelligible.