Summary

The concept of “fundamental principles of the Constitution” is nowhere to be found in the text of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia. This term was created in conjunction with Estonia’s acceptance as a Member State of the European Union, as Estonia chose to regulate the matter of accession to the EU through adoption of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia Amendment Act. Section one of this Act confirms expressis verbis, “Estonia may belong to the European Union in accordance with the fundamental principles of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia”. In essence, this means the amendment of the Constitution as a whole, without amendment of the provisions of the valid Constitution as such, but where membership in the EU requires that the Constitution be interpreted together with these fundamental principles.

More than seven years have passed since the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia Amendment Act was adopted. Yet we still do not have a sufficient amount of legally authoritative statements by public authorities that could help us to decipher the relationship between our national legal order and the legal order of the EU, which foremost entails the limits of the primacy of EU law. Unfortunately, there has also been little academic discussion concerning these fundamental principles. The author emphasises that it is our common duty to define what these fundamental principles are.

This article is based on two speeches made by the author: “Estonian Statehood: Experiences and Perspectives” given on the occasion of the XX anniversary of the Estonian Lawyers Association on 10 March 2009 in Tallinn, and “The National University and Fundamental Principles of the Constitution” given on the 91st anniversary of the University of Tartu as a national university on 1 December 2010.