Judicial Interpretation and Competition Law Enforcement: Authoritarian Legal Culture, Semantic Dissonance and Skewed Agencification in Post-Socialist Croatia

Abstract This article argues that more than thirty years after democratic and economic transition, the legacy of authoritarian legal culture in post-socialist EU Member States limits the effectiveness of competition law enforcement. Concentrating on Croatia but mindful of the experience of other Central and East European countries that acceded to the EU in 2004 and 2007, we show examples of post-accession case law illustrative of excessive judicial formalism and disassociation between the legal