ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the context of the highly specific body of Court of Justice case law and explores the effect and reasoning. The Court of Justice has been credited, or criticized, for bringing about an extraordinary change within the developing field of free movement of persons. Some argues that the actions of the Court of Justice have contradicted the wording and spirit of present or earlier law, going against the intent of the European Union (EU) legislator. In the Union citizenship debate, each scholar has seemed to construct their own unique set of case law. As a rule, the Court of Justice does not assess the legitimacy of the objective of a suspect national measure. According to Gareth Davies, legitimacy would be a non-issue anyway as all national legislation presumably has some legitimate aim. The reasoning in the relevant case law does not give a very activist image of the Court of Justice.
