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by jampekka 969 days ago
GDPR is an EU regulation which means that it is one law for the whole union. EU regulations supersedes even constitutions of member countries. An EU directive means that countries have to put a law in their own books.

Don't know though how different court judgements are interpreted. I'd guess it would have to be an EU-court judgement for it to bind other courts. In most EU countries only high/supreme court rulings set a precedent anyway.

2 comments

> EU regulations supersedes even constitutions of member countries.

On paper that is the idea politicians had, but they don't always have the final say in practice. For instance Germany's Federal Constitutional Court reserved themselves the right to make decisions superseding EU regulations, however re-affirming the authority of the European Court of Justice "in the general case", since it is compatible with Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. Neither court is explicitly considered to be higher and their stance is cooperative.

So far, as far as I know, no EU regulation was struck down in Germany, only parts of various laws implementing directives.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht-Urteil

>Don't know though how different court judgements are interpreted. I'd guess it would have to be an EU-court judgement for it to bind other courts.

If there is a contested interpretation of EU law then the lower courts of a member state MAY refer a question (or questions) to the CJEU to resolve the issue.

In the case of the highest courts (where there can be no appeal) they MUST make a referral to the CJEU.

These referrals also aren't "appeals" as such, either, but are designed to answer the questions in such a way that the member states' courts can resolve the case with an authoritative (and consistent) interpretation of EU law.