The Political Role of the Court in Integration Processes: a Comparative Analysis of the EU and the EAEU

There are no two regional integration process alike. They are different in terms of the system of regional institutions, where the Court holds a unique position. Acting by virtue of the powers vested to him by the phenomenon of ‘‘judicialization of politics’’, judges have become important policy-making actors. The purpose of this master thesis is to figure out the political role of the Court in two regional integrations, such as the European Union and the Eurasian Economic Union. Under the political role of judiciary the extent of its autonomy from executive bodies is understood. Based on the integration theories and the literature review on the Court’s place within supranational institutions, a qualitative research backed by the document analysis was conducted. The analysis of the primary resources, such as official judicial and legislative documents, demonstrated that there are two completely different integration models in terms of dissimilar executive power involvement in integration process. The results indicate the presidential-driven nature of Eurasian integration where the Court is subordinated to the Member States leaders’ interests. By contrast, the European Court of Justice possesses an autonomous realm expressed by an independent position of judges and legal consequences of their decisions.