EU membership could significantly alter Iceland’s legal system

Iceland’s possible entry into the European Union could have significant legal consequences because of the differences between the Court of Justice of the European Union and the EFTA Court, mbl.is reports. Carl Baudenbacher, a former president of the EFTA Court, made the comments at a meeting in Sjálfstæðissalurinn, a meeting hall by Austurvöllur.

Former Icelandic President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson chaired questions from the audience. He also joked that Baudenbacher was the only person who could persuade Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson, Guðlaugur Þór Þórðarson and Guðni Ágústsson to sit together at a public meeting.

Ólafur Ragnar recalled a visit to Iceland by French President François Mitterrand, apparently in August 1990, during the early negotiations on the European Economic Area Agreement.

He said that after a meeting at the former prime minister’s residence, Prime Minister Steingrímur Hermannsson and Foreign Minister Jón Baldvin had listed various exemptions Iceland might seek in possible negotiations.

“Gentlemen, an agreement cannot consist solely of exemptions,” Mitterrand reportedly replied.

Ólafur Ragnar then asked Baudenbacher to explain the difference for Icelanders between being subject to the EU court and the EFTA Court, as Iceland currently is through EFTA and the EEA.

Baudenbacher said the EU court had 27 judges and a staff of 3,000. He said it relied much more heavily than the EFTA Court on creative interpretations of the law, including discretionary decisions about how laws should be interpreted.

He also said the EU court was now the second most powerful court in the world, after the US Supreme Court. A large proportion of its judges were not judges or law professors but had political backgrounds, he said, which influenced their views. He also pointed to movement between the European Commission and the EU court.

Unlike the EFTA Court, judges at the EU court cannot issue separate opinions, Baudenbacher said. This made it impossible to determine the positions of individual judges and conflicted with Nordic legal traditions. He added that French was the court’s language and influenced its case law, while the EU court was not required to give reasons for its decisions in the same way as the EFTA Court.