In important areas of EU law, the principal law-making institution is the Court of Justice of the European Union and not the EU legislature. This article criticizes the current allocation of power between both institutions and the different conceptions of political legitimacy that have been developed to justify it. The Court’s authority has been justified on the basis of output-oriented conceptions of political legitimacy that ground legitimacy in the kind of outcomes political institutions produce. This article argues that the different standards of output-legitimacy used are important but insufficient to legitimize EU institutions. Only input-oriented legitimacy can serve as a sufficiently strong form of legitimacy for the EU. More concretely, the article argues that the EU must be assessed by demoicratic standards of legitimacy. Unlike output-oriented theories of political legitimacy, which justify the transfer of authority from the EU legislature to the Court, a demoicratic conception of political legitimacy weighs in favor of legislative decision-making. This article explores whether it is possible to improve the political status of the EU legislature without Treaty amendment.

中文翻译：

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欧盟的民主立法机构

在欧盟法律的重要领域，主要的立法机构是欧盟法院，而不是欧盟立法机构。本文批评了当前两个机构之间的权力分配以及为证明这一点而发展起来的不同的政治合法性概念。法院的权威是基于以产出为导向的政治合法性概念的正当性，这种概念将合法性建立在政治机构所产生的那种结果之上。本文认为，使用的不同产出合法性标准很重要，但不足以使欧盟机构合法化。只有以投入为导向的合法性才能成为欧盟足够强大的合法性形式。更具体地说，该文章认为，必须以民主的合法性标准来评估欧盟。与将权力从欧盟立法机构转移到法院的以产出为导向的政治合法性理论不同，民主主义的政治合法性概念有利于立法决策。本文探讨是否有可能在不修改条约的情况下提高欧盟立法机构的政治地位。