Criminology, Law & Society

Community policies, to enforce Community law (jointly with the Court of Justice) and to negotiate international agreements, mainly those relating to trade and cooperation.

In matters relating to foreign, defence and home affairs policy, where member states have not delegated powers to the other EU institutions, the Council plays the predominant role setting political guidelines. For example, it has the power to sign international agreements with non-EU countries on behalf of the EU.

They are elected once every five years by voters right across the 27 Member States of the European Union on behalf of its 492 million citizens. In many policy areas, decisions on new European laws are made jointly by Parliament and the Council of Ministers, which represents Member States.

As part of that mission, the Court of Justice of the European Union:

reviews the legality of the acts of the institutions of the European Union,

ensures that the Member States comply with obligations under the Treaties, and

interprets European Union law at the request of the national courts and tribunals.

The Court thus constitutes the judicial authority of the European Union and, in cooperation with the courts and tribunals of the Member States, it ensures the uniform application and interpretation of European Union law.
The Court of Justice of the European Union, which has its seat in Luxembourg, consists of three courts: the Court of Justice, the General Court (created in 1988) and the Civil Service Tribunal (created in 2004). Since their establishment, approximately 15 000 judgments have been delivered by the three courts.

The Court of Justice is the Supreme Court for interpreting European Community (now European Union) law. The Court may be called upon to decide cases brought
by the Member States, by the Community institutions and by individuals and
companies. It ensures uniform interpretation of Community law throughout the
Community by close cooperation with national courts and tribunals through the
preliminary ruling procedure.

The Court of First Instance was created by the Council on September 1, 1989, in
order to improve the judicial protection of individual interests and to enable
the Court of Justice to concentrate its activities on its fundamental task of
ensuring uniform interpretation of Community law. Its judgments may be subject
to an appeal brought before the Court of Justice but only on a point of law.

A typical decision may contain two documents: (1) the judgment of the Court and
(2) the opinion of the Advocate General. Each document has a unique NEXIS Cite
that is LEXSEEable; most documents dated before June 2000 contain LEXIS
pagination for easy reference. English language documents may appear online in an abstract form when first received, followed by the full-text shortly thereafter.

For directives, regulations, treaties, and other EU legal materials, see EUR-Lex EU Law Database: Combined Files. For additional analysis of important EU decisions and emerging issues, refer to European Union > Emerging Issues, and especially the Matthew Bender EU treatises. For the latest news from the EU, check EU News, EUObserver.com and TED (Tenders Electronic Daily) for the latest tender offers.

EUR-Lex offers: daily editions of the Official Journal of the European Union online, simple search, advanced search and browsing options, the possibility to display and/or download documents (PDF, HTML, DOC, TIFF), analytical metadata for each document.

There are five components to the Official Journal:

Legislation - L Series contains regulations and directives adopted by the Commission or the Council alone or jointly with the European Parliament. Prior to 1968, the Official Journal was not divided into the L and C series.
Communications - C Series contains non-binding decisions of the EU institutions such as communications of the Commission on various topics, Court judgments, opinions of the Committee of the Regions or the Economic and Social Council.
Communications - CE Series contains Commission proposals since July 1999. It is only available in an electronic version on EurLex, Westlaw, or Lexis. A table of contents of the electronic CE series is published in the C Series.
Annex-Debates contains verbatim reports of the plenary sessions of the European Parliament. The Annex-Debates ceased publication after the May 1999 parliamentary session.
Supplement - S Series contains notices of invitations to bid on EU funded contracts.