Traveling Naomi: Three Countries in a Day

Day 13
Unfortunately, the day began with us having to leave our short-lived but luxurious accommodations in Trier, Germany as we prepared for another long day on the bus, now headed to Luxembourg. In Luxembourg, we visited the Court of Justice and listened to staff presentations on the details of the Court and the specific job of the Advocate General.

There are three court levels in Luxembourg: the staff court (individual disputes), the general court (review of EU legislation), and the European Court of Justice. The court sees only 600 cases per year and the average case takes about 16 months. How to interpret EU law represents 40% of their caseload. For example, the EU states that human life cannot be patented, but there is a dispute on when life begins. There are 27 judges, one for each member state of the EU. The judges are termed for five years with no limit of renewals and are difficult/impossible to fire, but stay only an average of 2 terms. The court's purpose is to find a consensus on what the law is; they don't interpret the law, they apply them. There are 23 official languages of the court, but the working language is French. 800 people on staff are legal linguists whose job it is to translate every document and court proceeding. A legal linguist must have a law degree from their nation and preferably an additional law degree in another language (2 law degrees!). It takes two months for all the court documents to be translated, and another two just to translate the judgment. Cases are brought by individuals against the state, they are generally not state vs. state because that is political suicide.

Advocate Generals serve as senior jurists to the national lawyers. It is their job to make reasoned submissions with individual personalized approach. Unlike the judges that are required to all agree, the AG is not constrained by compromise and can be opinionated and interpretive of the law. The AG is valuable to the Court because they: address inconsistencies, can provoke the court, brings quality control, and bridges the court with the legal community by providing a dialogue with national courts and practitioner. The AG can also serve as a handy scapegoat for unpopular decisions made by the court. If there is a general public/corporate disapproval it can be focused on the AG instead of entire court. Over half of the cases at the European Court of Justice have an Advocate General.

After the presentations, we took a short tour of the Court building before heading into downton Luxembourg for some lunch. Luxembourg is one of the wealthiest cities in Europe, and it is very obvious. It was going to cost me $30 or more just to sit down at any restaurant, so most of us opted for some fast food. The temperature outside was freezing and rainy, which was pretty untimely considering we had three hours of free time here and nowhere to go. I lazily wandered in and out of shops with a couple friends in an effort to keep warm indoors, and even got to buy some delicious macaroons from a bakery.

Once we were all loaded back on the bus, our next stop was a hostel in Brussels, Belgium where we would be staying for the next two days. I arrived and unpacked before taking the train with a few friends to go explore downtown Brussells, which had an amazing nightlife! That night I also found out the interesting fact that Belgium currently does not have a government. Elections were successfully held in 2010, but the winning parties were unable to for a coalition. Currently, an interrim government is in place, but this is the longest any country has gone on without an official governing body in place.

Peace, Love, and Belgium ~ Naomi

Pictures of the Day