Whenever a political institution seeks to rely on legal advice, there are often calls for that advice to be published, so it can be scrutinised. As has been discussed previously on the blog, there are pros and cons to placing material prepared in confidence into the public domain. Päivi Leino-Sandberg argues that in an EU context, such advice is often invisible, to the detriment of the decision-making process. 

Legal advice matters. It may not always decide the fate of nations, as Attorney General Geoffrey Cox’s advice on the Irish backstop may have done, but an astute follower of EU politics may recall times when proposals by the European Commission have hit a legal roadblock. A measure may have been found unconstitutional by the legal service of another EU Institution or a powerful Member State, bringing the political process to a halt. Typically, a flurry of fierce legal wrangling then ensues, during which the offending parts of the proposal are reviewed, removed or modified to reconcile divergent legal views. In most cases, the proposal will eventually re-emerge and is adopted in a revised form. Sometimes, it is quietly buried.

These are the battlegrounds of legal advisers working in the EU Institutions. Their opinions carry significant weight. The Commission Legal Service has enjoyed a de facto veto power over most Commission measures, even though this power has weakened during the Juncker Commission (2014-2019). The Council Legal Service is no less powerful. A Member State legal adviser explains how:

‘if you haven’t either managed to silence the Council Legal Service … or get them onside, forget about it. Because if they come out with something that’s contrary to where you are, they probably have a natural majority of fifteen Member States before you even start. And of the thirteen others, seven or eight will go with them anyway.’

But in spite of its importance, legal advice in the EU remains curiously invisible.

Two recent posts on this blog debated access to legal advice given to parliaments. In the first of these posts, Ben Yong, Greg Davies and Cristina Leston-Bandeira cautioned against publishing UK Parliament select committee legal advice. They concluded that publication of advice personalises and potentially politicises it, and threatens the relationship of trust and confidence between officials and parliamentarians. Publication might also create an exaggerated picture of the role of legal advice in political decision-making. In contrast, Gabrielle Appleby advocated for the publication of such advice to facilitate greater transparency about the influence of legal advice in parliamentary decision-making.

In the EU, legal advice given in the legislative context should, as a rule, be open to public scrutiny. However, it continues to be treated as confidential. I have been examining its use empirically in the Commission, the Council and the European Parliament. Each of these institutions has – in addition to legally trained officials in policy units – a dedicated Legal Service that plays a key role in its legislative work and defends it before the courts. It is these bodies that are tasked to assess the constitutionality of proposed action. They may advise against certain approaches and recommend in favour of others. Continue reading →