CONPLEX · The Constitutional Place of Expertise

The Constitutional Place of Expertise

The research contributed to the development of a constitutionally informed theory of expertise within the EU. It addressed the question of how technical and democratic legitimacy can be reconciled in a supranational polity. The democratic legitimacy of expert-based decisions is a recurring problem in EU regulatory decision-making. In the field of health and environmental risk regulation, expert-based decisions have repeatedly been the target of public contestation. In such cases, technical complexity risks resulting in an apparent neutralisation of political conflicts into merely technical assessments. At the same time, expertise plays a key role, as the COVID-19 pandemic has once again demonstrated. It is therefore essential to ensure that expert input into decision-making processes is aligned with the EU’s commitment to democratic government. The project addressed these tensions from a constitutional standpoint. It started from the hypothesis that constitutional principles (e.g. transparency, participation, and rational administrative decision-making) can generate dialectic processes between courts and decision-makers. In order to assess whether such potential is realised, it undertook a systematic investigation of how European Courts frame such principles when reviewing expert-based decisions. It then examined institutional practice, in order to assess how decision-makers respond to judicial activity. Its overall objective was to establish whether detecting links and influences between judicial and institutional activity could pave the way for a more democratically sound involvement of experts in regulatory decision-making processes. The research focussed on judicial review of health and environmental protection measures based on European agencies’ opinions (EMA, EFSA, ECHA). Findings suggest that such dialectic processes struggle to emerge. While Courts are active in tailoring the relevant principles to the peculiarities of technically complex measures, they do not seem to develop their legitimacy-enhancing potential. Agencies practices, while being oriented at implementing the relevant principles, seem to have limited links with the Court’s case law.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз