The role of National Parliaments in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Résumé
The role of national parliaments in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ) has been a conspicuously understudied research field. If the neglect of national parliaments by political science scholars of EU justice and home affairs may be surprising considering the numerous legal studies flagging the problems of accountability and the perceived democratic deficit of the AFSJ (Boswell 2010: 279), it also reflects the limited scrutiny powers of national representative assemblies in justice and home affairs matters. Although national parliaments entered the EU law concomitantly with the beginning of the EU’s formal involvement in security matters marked by the Maastricht Treaty (1993), it was only with the Lisbon Treaty that their role was constitutionalized in connection with the AFSJ. The Treaty of Lisbon has added to the traditional indirect way of scrutiny – through the ex-ante and ex-post accountability of governments – a direct role of national parliaments in the AFSJ, allowing them to interfere directly in the EU legislative process.