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GAZETTE

APRIL 1983

BOOK REVIEWS

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PLENDER, RICHARD: "A Practical Introduction to

European Community Law". Sweet & Maxwell, 1980.

This paperback (166 pages) is "designed to present the

practitioner with the basic information that he requires in

order to recognise a point of European Community law

when he sees it, and to show how that law can be used with

effect". The author, by providing a readable text together

with an extensive bibliography and authoratative

footnotes at the end of each chapter, has competently and

intelligently achieved his objective notwithstanding his

modestly prefaced reservation that it "is not, of course, to

be used as a work of reference . . . Nor is it to be used as a

students' text book". Avoiding lengthy explanation of the

Institutions of the EEC, Dr. Plender methodically

explains, canvasses and criticises both established and

innovative uses of Community law on a carefully

organised chapter basis to which I will now turn.

His first Chapter "Basic Principles" describes

coherently the direct effect and supremacy of Community

law, its sources and the developing common law of the

European Court of Justice (ECJ) as a new legal system

creating rights and duties for supranational institutions,

Member States, corporations and individuals.

His discussion in Chapter 2 "The Jurisdiction of

National Courts and of The European Court", the

remedies available and the 'locus standi' rules is

fundamental information for every practitioner. It should

be noted (at p. 17-19) however that the guidelines

provided by Lord Denning in

Buhner

v.

Bollinger

([1974], 2 All ER 1226 (at 1234-1236)) as to when an

Article 177 reference should be made to the ECJ which he

discusses have been rejected by Barrington, J. in the Irish

High Court (

I C M S A

v.

Government

of

Ireland,

unreported 1979 No. 5672P, 25.10.79 at p.5). He

criticises the ECJ's original jurisdiction in Community

staff cases (amounting to nearly 30% of all cases which

have been brought before it) as an "intolerable strain on

the court's time and resources" (p. 30) and recommends

the establishment of a Staff Tribunal. His presentation of

the procedure to be followed when bringing a case before

the ECJ (which may award legal aid in the form of a cash

grant to any litigant) in Chapter 3 combines accuracy with

simplicity.

In Chapter 4 he introduces the reader to a rich area of

potential private action, namely the free movement of

goods provisions, customs duties and their valuation, and

the prohibition of measures having overt or covert

equivalent restrictive effects. In this regard as an example

he points to certain legislation which "remains open to

challenge" (p. 4 9) and questions inter alia whether "the

rate of duty on wines, in a country such as the United

Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland, be such as to afford

indirect protection to the brewing industry?" (p. 50).

Again in his Chapter 5, on the free movement of labour,

stressing that "about 2 5 0 , 0 00 natives of Ireland live in the

Greater London area alone" (p. 59) and with a view to

canvassing uses, he catalogues (at p. 65) the several rights

and welfare benefits enjoyed by workers, and raises some

probing questions in relation to their possible future

application (p.66). The eight forms of social security for

workers provided by Community legislation which "cover

a life blighted with misfortune from the cradle to the

grave" (p.70) provide in his analysis a bridge between the

employed and the self-employed.

The

self-employed, corporations,

co-operatives,

partnerships and firms are the subject matter of his sixth

Chapter dealing with the freedom of establishment. His

otherwise summary treatment of the Community Direc-

tives on Company Law raises the doubt as to whether the

language of the English Act implementing the First

Directive "is apt" (p.83). He explains the conditions

under which architects, doctors and nurses may freely

practise their profession in any of the Member States, and

in relation to the legal profession, he demonstrates that as

there is no Community provision regulating the rights of a

lawyer in one part of a State to practise in another part of

that State" . . . an Irish barrister may be permitted to

perform in England functions that an English barrister

could not properly discharge" (p.91).

In Chapters 7 and 8 he correctly and concisely treats

the anti-trust laws on restrictive agreements and practices

( EEC Art. 85) and on monopolies and dominant positions

( EEC Art. 86) separately. In the former, he considers

which concerted arrangements are prohibited and void for

their (potential) anticompetitive effects and which are

excepted and criticises the legal uncertainty in this

distinction. In the latter, he states how the Treaty's

prohibition on an abuse of a dominant position is based

upon "a traditional economic or moral objection'to

monopolies and dominant positions, which lies in the

inefficiency with which they are likely to produce, granted

the breadth of discretion that they afford to their occupants

to make commercial decisions free of competitive

restraints" (p. 110).

His short Chapter 9 on Trade and Agricultural

Products reopens discussion on the availability of

remedies for private litigants which in a second edition

would be more appropriately found in Chapter 2.

Finally, from his introductory-type comments on the

Community regulation of agribusiness, he concludes with

a critical analysis of the European Convention on the

Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial

Matters which has subsequently been implemented in

England although not yet in Ireland.

N o good book is free of printing errors: thus one should

read "and" for "or" on the third line of the second

paragraph of p. 142; and surely one should not dishonour

the Commission with a perfunctory "commission" (third

line from end of p. 123)?

This book with its practical bias and short concise text

provides a comprehensive overview of Community law

which for the past ten years has been part of the Law of

Ireland and is recommended to all Irish Solicitors.

Duncan S. J. Grehan

The Northern Ireland Act, 1982 by Paul R. McGuire

Current Law Statute Reprints, Sweet & Maxwell

STG£ 4 . 50 pp 1]7.

Subscribers to Sweet and Maxwell's Current Law

Statutes obtain copies of new legislation as it is enacted,

together with annotations placing the legislation in

perspective and offering clear and concise interpretations.

This publication is of specific interest to those with an

interest in Northern Irish politics. The booklet reproduces

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