Judgment Day: The Strategic Delivery of Citizenship Judgments by the Court of Justice of the European Union during Brexit

The Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court) delivered some of the most anticipated and politically contentious judgments suspiciously close to Brexit events. Strategic accounts of judicial behaviour have extensively studied the timing of decisions delivered by other courts. Aside from occasional comments on the strategic delivery of certain judgments to attain political goals, the timing of decisions at the Court remains largely unexplored. Against this backdrop, the article seeks to assess the extent to which the timing of citizenship judgments was a strategic tool used by the Court to influence the Brexit political process. In approaching the question, the article conducts the first empirical legal study of the timing of judgments at the Court by quantitatively and qualitatively analysing the timing of all 205 citizenship judgments through a strategic lens, highlighting the ensuing political implications. The findings reveal the Court’s tendency to deliver citizenship judgments with a thematic overlap to the political agenda near political events, a practice further intensified during Brexit. In strategically delivering citizenship judgments touching upon core Brexit issues near political events the Court contributed to the Brexit political process.