What is a Leading Case in EU Law? An Empirical Analysis

Lawyers generally explain legal development by looking at explicit amendments to statutory law and modifications in judicial practice. As far as the latter are concerned, leading cases occupy a special place. This article empirically studies the process in which certain cases become leading cases. Our analysis focuses on Les Verts, a case of considerable fame in EU law, closely scrutinising whether it contains inherent leading case material. We show how the legal relevance of a case can become "embedded" in a long process of reinterpretation by legal actors, and we demonstrate that the actual legal impact of Les Verts on the acquis is most visible in the area that was sidelined in the academic commentary. This implies that a leading case is a symbolic category, which might not always correspond to the actual role that the case plays in the Court's jurisprudence.