ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses primarily on how national courts, through legal argumentation and justification, communicate a meaning and a need to apply EU legal norms in the national legal context. In the Estonian context, the legal academic journals Juridica and Juridica International, especially recently, provide an increasing number of high-quality publications on issues of EU law. However the importance of analytical-persuasive arguments in deciding EU law cases by national courts, especially in post-Soviet legal systems, must not be underestimated. The reference to EU general principles of law was further developed by the ESC in a 1997 case related to naturalization requirements for acquisition of Estonian citizenship. The provisions of EU law and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights were most intensively addressed by the Constitutional Court in a case challenging the constitutionality of amendments restricting the pool of eligible legal counsel representatives in criminal proceedings to sworn advocates.
