MELLS establishes standard practices for local government in Europe. Both theoretical and practical experts have noted issues with ambiguous and vague provisions. Domestic courts judge any violations of MELLS as no international court holds jurisdiction over it.
CLRAE monitoring plays a vital role in ensuring MELLS is used correctly. Its key functions include analyzing collected data and proposing improvements for MELLS implementation through reports and recommendations. The main objective of monitoring is to ensure local governments comply with MELLS principles and provisions.
The Master's dissertation is divided into two sections: theoretical and empirical. Theoretical principles were used in the former through descriptive, inductive, and deductive methods. This section focuses primarily on defining legal aspects and MELLS terminology.
In the empirical section, we employed a case law analysis methodology to investigate the MELLS provisions, as invoked by self-governing local authorities in Constitutional Court proceedings, and further examined their rationale for such invocation.
Based on an examination of judgments from constitutional courts, we deduce that the MELLS establishes a standard of international law for the Constitutional Court to use when interpreting certain legal principles and rights. Articles 3 and 4 of the MELLS are commonly cited in the constitutional jurisprudence of Spain, Italy, and Croatia. Meanwhile, municipalities often reference Articles 4 and 9 of the MELLS, while the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia most frequently refers to Articles 3 and 4.
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