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Delabruyère, Sophie --- "On 'Legal Choice' and legal competition in a federal system of justice. Lessons for European legal integration" [2003] ELECD 66; in Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel (eds), "From Economic to Legal Competition" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003)

Book Title: From Economic to Legal Competition

Editor(s): Marciano, Alain; Josselin, Jean-Michel

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781843760061

Section: Chapter 2

Section Title: On 'Legal Choice' and legal competition in a federal system of justice. Lessons for European legal integration

Author(s): Delabruyère, Sophie

Number of pages: 26

Extract:

2. On `Legal Choice' and legal
competition in a federal system of
justice. Lessons for European legal
integration
Sophie Delabruyère2

INTRODUCTION
For several decades, European member states have been involved in a progres-
sive and extensive process of integration concerning commercial and
economic dimensions, monetary aspects, but also regarding legal and judicial
services. The issue of European Legal Integration nowadays takes the form of
discussions concerning the emergence of the `European Judicial Area'. Among
the diverse questions that arise in this perspective, one deals with the future
shape of this judicial area: does European legal integration necessarily imply
a centralized system of justice or, on the contrary, can we consider that the
existence and preservation of `decentralized' legal systems, namely the co-
existence of national legal systems in the European Union, is another way,
maybe more efficient, to achieve legal integration? It has frequently been
argued that the relations between national legal systems on the one hand, and
relations between national systems and the European legal order on the other
(relations which can be either competitive or cooperative3) fully take part in
the process of legal integration in Europe.
The achievement of the Single European Market, with the removal of
diverse barriers, implies free movement of goods, services, capital and citizens
between member states. This mobility of agents, associated with the fact that
the national legal and judicial systems remain in force in Europe, contribute to

2 Laboratoire CERAS-EDJ (Economie-Droit-Justice), Université de Reims Champagne
Ardenne, UFR ...