The recent Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board decision of the United States Supreme Court (see an earlier blog post on this case available here) gives a wonderful occasion to show a major difference between this country and Europe (Germany excepted but maybe not for long) on the question of the amount of independence a legislator (whether at the European or domestic level) can give to an administrative body. We will first review the French constitutional case law and afterwards the European one to show how things are different on the other side of the Atlantic.
Posts in "Independent Agencies" category
One of the difficult administrative law questions facing most legal systems today is the tradeoff between independence and accountability. Last Monday, June 28, the US Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 decision in the case of Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board that highlights this tension.
On March 9, 2010, the European Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) handed down a very interesting judgment regarding the required degree of independence of the authorities responsible for monitoring compliance with Directive 95/46/EC “on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data” (“Data Protection Directive”). The full text of the judgment is available here.
The Supreme Court heard oral argument on Monday in Free Enterprise Fund v. Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (08-861), an important separation of powers case.