He was president of the Youth People's Democratic Party in 1936, and a lieutenant at the
Fort de Saint-Cyr in 1939, whereafter he became actively involved in the
French Resistance and a member of the steering committee of the Resistance movement. In 1958, he was elected in the first constituency of the
Hautes-Alpes. A member of two national
constituent assemblies, he was elected from the
MRP in the Seine district, and retained his mandate during the three legislatures of the
Fourth Republic. He chaired the MRP group in the
French National Assembly, and was also a member of the Association of MRP until his death. In January 1958, as Minister of Justice in the government of Felix Gaillard, Lecourt proposed various reforms to the French Constitution. In modified form, the famous
Article 49-3 of France's 1958 Constitution is largely derived from his constitutional vision. After leaving the French government in 1961, Lecourt served as judge on the
European Court of Justice from 1962 to 1976, and as President of the Court from 1967 to 1976. In the fourteen years he spent in
Luxembourg as a European judge, Lecourt had a major impact on the
jurisprudence of the
Court of Justice of the European Communities. In 1964, he was
rapporteur in the famous
Costa v. ENEL case, in which the Court of Justice ruled that European law had primacy over national law. Lecourt was convinced that this was a necessity for the Court of Justice, and that the European judges had an active role to play in the creation of an ‘ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’. They did have to convince national courts to collaborate. Soon after his election as president of the court, Lecourt developed a communication strategy to convince national judges of the benefits of the preliminary ruling mechanism, a procedure through which they could ask the European judges questions regarding the interpretation of the
European Treaties. After his retirement from the Court, Lecourt published "L'Europe des Juges" (Bruylant, 1976), an account of the major decisions and principles of European law, targeted at national lawyers and judges. == Death ==