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Wouter G. Werner, "Judicial Legislation. The European Court of Justice as Institutional Landscaper", in Hanneke van Schooten, ed., Semiotics and Legislation. Jurisprudential, Institutional and Sociological Perspectives, 159-184: This chapter examines the constitutionalisation of the founding treaties of the European Communities by the European Court of Justice as a process of 'institutional landscaping'. By contrast to the function traditionally ascribed to courts - the creation of individual mandatory norms of conduct - the European Court of Justice has acted as a supra-national legislator, fundamentally changing the inter- and intrastate relations in Western Europe. The constitutionalisation of the founding treaties of the European Communities underlines that (judicial) legislation does not consist of mandatory norms of conduct only, but also - and foremost - of presentations of images of institutional environments (e.g. the presentation of human rights as part of the legal order of the Communities). Moreover, the constitutionalisation of the founding treaties raises questions as to the assumed structure of the judicial discourse and its relation to juristic (doctrinal) and legislative discourse. One of the most important types of ruling of the European Court - the preliminary rulings under article 177 - consists of authoritative interpretations of Community law, addressed to national courts rather than of binding decisions for the parties present in the courtroom. Furthermore, recent publications on the role of different agents in the development of European law indicate that there is a close intellectual relationship between European judges, practitioners in European law (lawyers and civil servants) and legal scholars in the field of Community law. Together, they form a relatively homogeneous "semiotic group" favouring the creation of a supra-national legal order. e-mail: W.G.Werner@bsk.utwente.nl

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