[JURIST] The German Federal Constitutional Court [official website, in German] ruled [judgment, in German; press release, in German] Thursday that German courts must follow precedent established by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) [official website] unless it is clearly a violation of the court's power. The court noted that minor violations of the ECJ's authority would not be enough to disqualify a ruling and that a ruling can be disregarded only if European institutions clearly violate the authority granted to them at the expense of the authority of the member states. The court's ruling came in a case involving a...