La anulación total o parcial de los actos legislativos comunitarios por el Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea

The Court of Justice of the European Union acts as a constitutional jurisdiction reviewing European legislative acts. However, the competence of the Courtto declare the partial or total invalidity of such acts has not been defined in the Treaties, unlike it happens in the legal systems of the Member States relating to their constitutional courts, and that competence has been unsatisfactorily defined in the Court of Justice jurisprudence on that subject. Therefore,in this article it is proposed a reformulation of that jurisprudence, defining specific criteria for partial annulment of legislative acts, taking into account the intention of the legislature to establish the severability or non-severability of the acts, and excluding the understanding of the inseverability of a legislative act provision as a dismissing action’s cause.El Tribunal de Justicia de la Unión Europea actúa como una jurisdicción constitucional cuando controla la nulidad y la invalidez de los actos legislativos comunitarios. No obstante, la competencia del Tribunal de Justicia para declarar la nulidad parcial o total de esos actos no ha sido delimitada en los Tratados, a diferencia de lo que ocurre en los ordenamientos de los Estados miembros en relación con sus tribunales constitucionales, y ha sido definida de forma poco satisfactoria en la propia jurisprudencia del Tribunal sobre la materia. Por este motivo, se propone una reformulación de esa jurisprudencia que incida en la definición de criterios específicos para la nulidad parcial de los actos legislativos, que tenga en cuenta la intención del legislador de establecer la separabilidad o no de las partes de dichos actos, y que excluya el entendimiento de la no separabilidad de las cláusulas impugnadas de un acto legislativo como una causa de inadmisibilidad del recurso.The Court of Justice of the European Union acts as a constitutional jurisdiction reviewing European legislative acts. However, the competence of the Courtto declare the partial or total invalidity of such acts has not been defined in the Treaties, unlike it happens in the legal systems of the Member States relating to their constitutional courts, and that competence has been unsatisfactorily defined in the Court of Justice jurisprudence on that subject. Therefore,in this article it is proposed a reformulation of that jurisprudence, defining specific criteria for partial annulment of legislative acts, taking into account the intention of the legislature to establish the severability or non-severability of the acts, and excluding the understanding of the inseverability of a legislative act provision as a dismissing action’s cause