CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2014
| Author | Szwed, Marcin Jozef |
|---|---|
| Title | Constitutional protection of freedom of contract in the European Union, Poland and the United States and its potential impact on the European contract law |
| Summary | The purpose of the present thesis is to analyze current status of freedom of contract as a fundamental right in the EU, its potential future developments and impact on the EU contract law and domestic laws of the Member States. To achieve these goals I analyze different approaches of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Constitutional Tribunal of Poland and the European Court of Justice. I also present reasons decisive for the level of protection of freedom of contract in each jurisdiction. I argue that several factors suggest that contractual liberty may play important role in the case law of the ECJ and could often prevail over social rights. Therefore, it cannot be excluded that it would lead to erosion of the level of social protection in domestic law of the Member States. On the other hand, due to reluctance of the ECJ to invalidate EU secondary law it is improbable that art. 16 of the Charter would be used to invalidation of consumer protection or anti-discrimination guarantees at the EU level. As to the impact of the constitutionalization of freedom of contract on the harmonization of EU contract law I argue that although so far the jurisprudence of the ECJ had not played important role in the harmonization process, growing importance of art. 16 of the Charter may contribute to resolution of debates in the legal doctrine and would probably require reconsideration of the proposals presented by the European Commission. |
| Supervisor | Granger, Marie-Pierre |
| Department | Legal Studies LLM |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2014/szwed_marcin.pdf |
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