European Court of Justice – teleological interpretation of law, or judicial lawmaking?!

Similarly to structure of a state there are institutions in the EU among which legislative, executive and judicial powers are distributed. Therefore we can talk about application of principle of separation of powers. The article is focused on the thin line between interpretation of EU law, mentioned primarily in context of necessity to fulfill its gaps, performed by ECJ mainly through teleological interpretation, and judicial lawmaking. Does the Court of Justice perform lawmaking, which represents infringement of the mentioned principle? The Article reminds us of ECJ’s position in EU and provides opinions of legal theorists in regard to interpretative methods, particularly the teleological one. Theoretical ground is complemented by examples of ECJ’s caselaw (including contemporary judgments) in which, by our opinion, the Court has realized lawmaking. Finally we assess whether the Court really takes part in (EU) lawmaking and consequently we answer the question how strict we should be in case the ECJ does so.