The Rule of Law, Fair Trial and Human Dignity: The Protection of EU Values After LM

The 2018 CJEU ruling in LM highlighted the importance of judicial independence for the rule of law and protection of the right to fair trial. In so doing, the judgment raised problematic questions about the relationship between Article 2 values and the EU Charter rights, and their connection with mutual trust. This chapter considers these issues through the lens of human dignity, which is both the first foundational value under Article 2 and the first right in the EU Charter. By discussing how the LM judgment raises the constitutional status of the right to a fair trial, this chapter argues that a focus on human dignity could effectively link Article 2 values with EU Charter rights and facilitate assessment of their respective breach.

Hungary’s Latest Experiences with Article 2 TEU: The Need for ‘Informed’ EU Sanctions

This contribution will concentrate on the Hungarian situation by analysing the generalised practice of targeted legislation and the different causes for legal uncertainty on the constitutional level. The European Parliament initiated an Article 7 TEU sanctioning procedure against Hungary in September 2018 and several infringement proceedings have been launched by the Commission. Unfortunately, these EU responses were not able to grasp the gist of the Hungarian developments. Even the so called Sargentini report of the European Parliament—intended to be a comprehensive analysis of the rule of law deficiencies in Hungary—could not identify the most significant patterns of the Hungarian rule of law decline. This reveals a central shortcoming of EU sanctioning mechanisms employed against ‘backsliding’ Member States: the need for ‘informed’ sanctions. Some recent legislative proposals for measuring the rule of law illustrate, that the need for such informed sanctions has been realised by EU institutions. However, the question of ‘how’ is still unanswered. Taking the case of Hungary as an example, I will finally recommend some aspects to be considered in order to grasp the patterns of ‘systemic’ rule of law decline.

The Rule of Law Framework in the European Union: Its Rationale, Origins, Role and International Ramifications

At present, the European rule of law enforcement framework under Article 7 TEU (RLF) is vulnerable to unguaranteed, discretionary influences of the Member States. This vulnerability arises from its procedural format which requires high thresholds in decision-making with the effect that this procedure is prone to be terminated by the EU Member States likely to be scrutinized under it, if only they collude. Yet, the Framework may prove effective to correct serious breaches against human rights (in the context of ineffective rule of law standards). The European Commission is bound to pursue the RLF effectiveness for the sake of achieving relative uniformity of application of EU law (at large), and making the European Union a credible actor and co-creator of international legal order. The RLF is an important tool for the maintenance of relative stability of human rights and the rule of law in the EU despite natural divergence propensity resulting from the procedural autonomy of the EU Member States. By achieving this stability, the EU achieves significant political weight in international dialogue concerning human rights and the rule of law and preserves a high level of its global credibility in this context. Thus, RLF increases the EU’s effectiveness in promoting the European model of their identification and enforcement.

Towards a Tyranny of Values?

This contribution develops the framework of European reactions to the undermining of checks and balances in EU Member States. It surveys the normative setting with its various institutional options and contrasting constitutional principles and then applies these principles to the panoply of relevant instruments. The building blocks of this framework are competence, procedure, standards, and control. This should help Europe to speak with a principled voice. The contribution shows how red lines can be drawn that respect constitutional pluralism, and how any action’s legitimacy is enhanced if many institutions undertake it jointly.

The Rule of Law and the Roll of the Dice. The Uncertain Future of Investor-State Arbitration in the EU

Investment treaty law and EU law began to develop in the same era and share some important philosophical and axiological foundations. The pressure on the CEE countries to enter into numerous bilateral investment treaties in late 80s and early 90s, in the context of the EU accession aspirations of the former communist countries, was likely to result, eventually, in a conflict between EU law and investment treaty law. The conflict could have been managed in three different ways, yet the CJEU decided in Achmea to declare an undefined volume of intra-EU arbitrations to be incompatible with EU law. This important judgment, which delivered an outcome desired by the European Commission and a number of Member States, is based on questionable legal reasoning that creates high uncertainty in this area of law. The doubts include the scope of application of Achmea, which is now a highly debatable issue. The CJEU itself saw it necessary to limit the scope of Achmea by declaring in Opinion 1/17 (CETA) that the legal reasoning of Achmea did not apply to investment protection treaties with third countries. The Member States of the EU remain politically divided in their views as to whether Achmea applies to the Energy Charter Treaty. And while the problems with the rule of law and independence of the judiciary in certain Member States continue to grow, Achmea has left an important gap for which there is no substitute in the current architecture of the EU legal system.

The Responsibility of Courts in Maintaining the Rule of Law: Two Tales of Consequential Judicial Self-Restraint

Modern constitutionalism is based on the paradigm that courts are inherently entitled and obliged to enforce the constitution of the respective polity. This responsibility of courts also applies in the context of the European Union to both the CJEU and national constitutional courts. The present chapter argues that in the face of constitutional crises the CJEU and the Hungarian Constitutional Court shy away from applying the law as it is to the full. The reasons behind this unwarranted judicial self-restraint are most different: the CJEU aims to avoid conflicts with national constitutional courts whereas the Hungarian Constitutional Court has been facing a legislative power also acting as constitution making power willing to amend the constitution to achieve specific legislative purposes or to undo previous constitutional court decisions. Yet both courts respond to expediencies that do not follow from the law they are called upon to apply. It is argued that rule of law backsliding requires these courts to abandon the unnecessary self-restraint and exploit the means already available.

Defending Union Values in Judicial Proceedings. On How to Turn Article 2 TEU into a Judicially Applicable Provision

This chapter centres on the question of how to address violations of EU values in judicial proceedings before the Court of Justice. Instead of relying on fundamental freedoms, EU secondary legislation or the Charter, this chapter explores a more promising path—engaging with Article 2 TEU itself. Yet this path rests on a crucial premise: the judicial applicability of the values enshrined in Article 2 TEU. Such a judicial applicability is far from self-evident and needs to be carefully construed. Based on recent jurisprudential developments, this chapter will propose ways to operationalise Article 2 TEU without curtailing its unrestricted scope of application. The judgments of Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses, Minister for Justice and Equality (L.M.) and Commission v. Poland will be at the heart of this contribution.

Ascertaining the ‘Guarantee of Guarantees’: Recent Developments Regarding the Infringement Procedure in the EU’s Rule of Law Crisis

This chapter builds on an assessment of infringement proceedings in the EU rule of law crisis that we previously published in the Common Market Law Review. We offer a close reading of two recent prominent infringement cases by the European Commission against Poland (cases C-619/18 and C-192/18). Noteworthy advancements in EU law made with them are in particular a clarification on the parallel use of Articles 7 TEU and 258 TFEU, the use of both interim relief and an expedited procedure prior to the judgment, and, as regards the merits, further substance for the functioning of Articles 19 TEU and 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights regarding the operationalisation of the rule of law in EU law. We offer a critical assessment of the Court’s findings and contextualise in light of two Commission communications on the rule of law published in 2019.

A Potential Constitutional Moment for the European Rule of Law: The Importance of Red Lines

This contribution deals with the current European rule of law crisis. It does so by analyzing the recent CJEU’s judgment in re LM and by considering its possible ramifications for the future of the rule of law in the EU. In particular, it is argued that, as a result of this judgment, the European rule of law as provided for by Art. 2 TEU has become a legally enforceable value. The CJEU has indeed made clear that this value features a set of minimum standards that the Member States cannot bluntly disregard. In the present context, which is characterized by the inaction of the supranational and national political institutions, a prominent role in safeguarding a liberal understanding of the European rule of law is played by the entire European judiciary (the so-called ‘Gerichtsverbund’), including national courts and tribunals.

The Assessment of Judicial Independence Following the CJEU Ruling in C-216/18 LM

In the LM ruling, the Court of Justice developed the Aranyosi and Căldăraru test and indicated it as the one to be applied for the assessment of judicial independence and fair trial guarantees in the context of executing European Arrest Warrants. Although serious threats to the rule of law and judicial independence in some EU countries, like Poland, have been documented over recent years, no warrant has so far been definitely rejected as a consequence of the application of the LM test, although there are cases in which the execution of warrants to Poland has been suspended. This naturally raises questions as to whether the mechanism proposed by the Court responds to the need of protecting the right to a fair trial and safeguarding judicial independence. In this contribution we evaluate the mechanism devised by the Court, taking into account the available judicial practice after the LM ruling. We point out that the almost automatic transfer of a mechanism proposed to evaluate the functioning of a prison system to that evaluating a fair trial and judicial independence has not been fully successful. The mechanism proposed by the Court reveals a number of problematic issues and proves to be insufficient and not entirely adequate to assess judicial independence and guarantees of a fair trial.