We as constitutionalists owe it to ourselves and even to the 500 million other citizens of a member state and of the Union at the same time, to come up with a legally and constitutionally readable understanding of the situation. It must not be one suffering from the split between international and domestic public law. It must not mystify the Union as a completely original structure, intelligible only in its own terms. Such understanding should encompass not only the limits but also the logic of the situation; not only its mechanics but also its evolution. It should be intelligible for the public. It should allow for the multiple dualities of loyalty, of function, of legitimacy. It should allow for shared authority. Constitutional thought is well equipped to deal with actual duality and ambivalence. These characteristics of the Union are real and are here to stay.

ECtHR in Lautsi v. Italy: Mandatory display of crucifix in public schools violates Convention – Secularism and semi-secularism in the Italian Constitution – Italian High Administrative Court: Display of crucifix affirms principle of secularism – Exclusionary effect of display – ECtHR, religious freedom and margin of appreciation: dark side of consensus – ECtHR finally veritably counter-majoritarian.

Process of EU-driven constitutionalisation – Decision of Romanian Constitutional Court post-EU accession – Nullification of the Lustration Law to pre-accession judiciary reform processes – Lustration elsewhere considered a matter of collective guilt of confrontation with the past – Lustration in Romania related to legislative attempts to reform the judiciary

‘Foreign relations power’ (auswärtige Gewalt) in the Federal Republic of Germany strongly centralised by the Lindau Agreement in 1957 – Although the German Länder still retain some rights to act at an international level, the Federal Government is the dominant player in the foreign relations of the state – Introduction of Länder participation in European Union law-making and policy-making; new opportunities for them to perform a role in external relations – Cooperative character of German federalism confirmed

Arcelor ruling – Legal pluralism in European integration – Judicial law-making transcending hierarchy – Role of courts for legal unity – Autonomy of courts under different mandates – Joint responsibility for legal coherence – Councils of State Report 2008 – Reversal of method of reference – Cilfit and Köbler prevent headway – Horizontal cooperation between national judges

Five language rights models: human rights model, ‘old’ minority rights model, ‘new’ minority rights model, indigenous peoples rights model, and official-language rights model – Different philosophical and legal foundations and very different concerns: personal autonomy and development, social integration and cohesion, ethnocultural preservation, and political integration – Sociological and historical context of each state is key factor in the type of linguistic accommodation sought by minorities

For over 30 years the French Conseil d'Etat has maintained that it is impossible to rely on EC Directives before French administrative courts in a complaint filed against an individual administrative act. This in spite of the Court of Justice's well known case-law that directives under certain conditions can have direct effect, as was first recognized in SpA SACE v Finance Minister of the Italian Republic of 17 December 1970 and confirmed by Van Duyn v Home Office of 4 December 1974.

Introduction

Each time users connect to the internet or make a phone call, they leave ‘digital fingerprints’ which may turn out to be useful for identifying people involved in a crime or an act of terrorism. This is why there is great interest by law enforcement authorities in gaining access to traffic and location data, relying on the forced co-operation of telecommunication and internet providers. However, the effectiveness of compelling these service providers to retain such data for the purpose of fighting crime has been questioned. Moreover, data retention obligations interfere with the right to privacy of individuals, as protected by Article 8 European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR); therefore, they may be imposed only for a legitimate objective, i.e. to protect citizens' safety, and in full respect of the principle of proportionality.