Law and monetary policy: from limited judicial review to parliamentary scrutiny in the EMU

In monetary policy public power seems to go unchecked by law, even if law is a central component of monetary structures. Recent calls by US scholars to revisit the exceptionality of monetary policy in relation to public law could find some answers in recent monetary policy judgments in the European Monetary Union (EMU). Specifically, the legal principles deployed in the conflicting judgments of the Bundesverfassungsgericht and the Court of Justice of the European Union in Weiss, proportionality and reasons, combined with care, can be important tools to secure external scrutiny of central-bank measures. They provide parameters of reasoning that the ECB must deploy in its decision-making. Importantly, they can unveil the conditions, criteria and implications of monetary policy decisions and, potentially, influence and change the processes and content of monetary policy. But they have not been deployed by courts to this effect. I argue that they can support a heightened parliamentary scrutiny, and overcome limitations of the current monetary dialogue. Because of the EMU design, this is not a solution to democratize monetary policy, but one avenue to expand the voices that influence monetary policy decisions.