engleski

Linguistic Comparison within CJEU’s Decision-Making: A Debunking Exercise

It has long been noticed that there is no predetermined meaning of legal terms. Rather, meaning depends on the context and the interpreter (Engberg in Brook J Int Law 29:1135, 2003. https://brooklynworks.brooklaw.edu/bjil/vol29/iss3 /6). While this assertion holds true for both unilingual and multilingual legal environments, the Court of Justice of the European Union (hereinafter: CJEU) openly acknowledges it, by stating that no legal consequences can be based on the terminology used. Accordingly, by virtue of the principle of equal authenticity, when interpreting EU law courts cannot rely on a single language version. Adjudicating legal disputes involving linguistic matters in a multilingual environment-i.e. cases of discrepancies between different language versions of an EU legislative text-the CJEU has been given a fascinating role insofar as its interpretative moves include linguistic comparison, which in turn bears ramifications on uniformity and equal authenticity, as well as on effectiveness of EU law. With a view to unmasking the nature of the linguistic comparison carried out by the CJEU, this study examines settled case law, asking the following questions: What are the central moves of linguistic comparison? What role does it play in the process of CJEU’s decision-making? Has it changed over time?

Linguistic comparison · CJEU · Multilingualism · Equal authenticity · Legal interpretation

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