The Belgian Court d’ Appeal
Based on the case study, the Belgian Court d’ Appeal (the appellate court) has to weigh certain measures regarding the case appealed by Van der Sande. Specifically, the court has to look into both the national law (Belgian) and union law (Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union) before coming up with an informed decision on the case. For years, there has been a legal conflict among the European Union member states on which law should supersede the other. However, in this case, the Belgian appellate court should major in the European Law provision. Based on the principle of supremacy outlined in European law, the Belgian appellate court should take that into consideration. Essentially, the principle of supremacy states that European law should prevail in the case that it conflicts with the national law. As such, it should aim at ensuring that the European legal system survives under any circumstances. Therefore, the court should look into the specific law that the lower court used in ruling the Van der Sande case brought by his former football club. From the case study, the law court only applied the Belgian law. Thus, the court of the appellate of Belgium has room to look into European law and uphold its provisions since it is a member state. By the court of the appellate of Belgium subscribing to the European law provision, it will ensure that the goal and objectives set by European law of uniform application of the law in all member states are achieved.
Moreover, it will strengthen the bilateral relationship between Belgium and France. Correspondingly, the Belgian judges should consider the national law and foreign laws before making an amicable decision. As a result, the court of appeal of Belgian would obviously take into consideration the European law. Besides, European law has some directives and regulations that they set out specifically to a certain state. In this case, the Belgian court can direct the conflicting parties to seek directives from the European law since both the two clubs reside in countries which subscribe to the European law.