TOWARDS AN IMPROVED APPLICATION OF EUROPEAN UNION LAW IN LITHUANIA: THE EXAMPLES OF COMPETITION LAW AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW

摘要

Summary: Although both the Lithuanian authorities and Lithuanian courts had alreadystarted to apply EC law well before accession, the quality of application of EC law andthe frequency of its use have only improved within the last two years. Nevertheless, thereis still room and need for improvement in this area before proper application of EC lawin all sectors is achieved. This article analyses some cases decided by the Lithuanianauthorities and the highest Lithuanian courts for both administrative and generaljurisdiction, mainly in the fields of competition law and intellectual property law.Summarising the application of EC law by the Lithuanian Supreme Court in the area ofcivil jurisdiction, particularly intellectual property rights, on the one hand, and theLithuanian Supreme Administrative Court and the Lithuanian Competition Council, witha special focus on competition law, on the other, the authors contend that the applicationof EC law in the areas under consideration is far from ideal. In most cases, courts havenot yet developed a general view of Community law as a sui generis system of law. Thereare still difficulties in distinguishing between EC law and ordinary international law.Instead of referring to the specific nature of EC law, which is accepted in bothconstitutional jurisprudence and national legislation, courts treat EC law as somethinganalogous to international law. The principles set forth by the ECJ concerning the‘ideal’ application of Community law by the national judiciary have apparently not yetbeen fully comprehended by Lithuania’s courts. While they seem to have learned thatsupremacy must be given to EC law, in most cases they are unable to consistentlyincorporate reasoning based on such supremacy into their judgments. However, whenthese two ‘pioneer’ fields of EC law application are analysed, it is obvious that changesare gradually occurring. The first examples of application by both supreme courts werevery poor ones, lacking a systematic approach to application and insufficient in bothquality and quantity. The development of case law in trademark disputes permits a morepositive evaluation, while in the area of competition law EC law has begun to be appliedmuch more purposefully. ECJ case law is being referred to, and arguments by the partiesbased on EC law are given due consideration. Still, these two areas represent the mostwell-developed ones, while similar progress has not yet been seen in other fields of EClaw. Hopefully, satisfactory practice in the fields considered here will spill over into amore general awareness of EC law and, accordingly, its proper application. Since ‘thewill’ to apply EC law seems to exist on the part of national courts and institutions, ‘theway’ to apply it correctly must also be found. For the moment, the way is time, trainingand practice.