Escape from the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice: A good reason to quit the European Union?

One of the principal objectives of Brexit is to end the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (EU) over the UK. It raises the question whether the UK has ‘suffered’ more than other Member States from judicial action. To answer this question, this paper examines statistics on judicial action and finds that i) the UK has not been embroiled in more proceedings before the Court of Justice than other large Member States; ii) fewer proceedings have been initiated against it by the Commission than other larger or medium-size Member State; and iii) the UK has won relatively more cases than other large Member States. The paper also argues that in principle judicial bias towards integration is not necessarily harmful to the interests of a relatively open economy like that of the UK. This is because such an integrationist tendency would pry open other markets which would be beneficial to UK firms. In addition, the distortion-preventing powers of other EU institutions such as the European Commission also tend to favour pro-market countries like the UK. Lastly, the paper considers alternative dispute resolution arrangements identified by the UK and suggests that they are more likely to reduce legal certainty and delay effective enforcement than the present system based on the Court of Justice.