The binding authority of the rulings rendered by the European Court of Justice is the principal reason why the preliminary ruling procedure may constitute an efficient means of enforcing EU law in general – and EU values in particular. This article explains how the preliminary ruling procedure can be used as a tool towards the enforcement of EU values. It considers who can use the procedure to this end, it examines how to create the basis for...

In the legal order of the European Union (EU), the values contained in Article 2 TEU define the very identity of the Union as a common legal order. The common values, which include the rule of law, are embedded in the very DNA of the European integration project. In its landmark judgment in Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses, the Court of Justice indicated the path towards defending the values contained in Article 2 TEU. Uphold...

The article aims to provide a clear and convincing answer to several questions that have been a permanent topic of discussion since the Court of Justice delivered its judgment in case of „Portuguese judges” in 2018. If the constitutions of the member states guarantee the independence of the judiciary, is there also a need for special protection afforded by European Union law? What justification does such supranational protection have? And if ...

Intellectual property rights education, protection of these rights, privacy and family life, and data protection are elements of a legal conflict. The analysis of a judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C-149/17 does not put Bastei Lübbe in a position to assess the consequences of file-sharing for copyright infringement. ...

The contribution focuses on the way in which the comparative law method is applied by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In so doing, it is argued that method of interpretation and the constitutional traditions common to the Member States go hand-in-hand. The contribution is divided into two parts. First, the constitutional authority that enables the Court of Justice to engage in a comparative study of th...

The present article deals with various expressions of proportionality in the legal order of the European Union (EU). The proportionality principle originally focused on justifications put forward by the Member States when they introduced or maintained restrictions to fundamental freedoms of the internal market. However, it quickly ‘spread’ to other situations falling within the scope of EU law. The article defines what the principle...

The paper explores the relationship between judicial dialogue, mutual trust and independence within the EU legal order. That relationship is governed by mutually-reinforcing dynamics, as there can only be an effective judicial dialogue between the European Court of Justice (the ‘ECJ’) and national courts, as well as between courts of different Member States, where those courts trust each other, and in order for those courts to trus...

The contribution investigates the concept of the procedural rule of law within the European Union legal order, as developed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”). The first section maps the doctrinal debate on EU procedural law. In this section, it views the principle of effectiveness as the core ‘foundational’ norm of procedural rule of law. The second section analyses the various applications of the procedural ru...

This article sets out the context and effects of the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (“CCF”) of 5 May 2020 on one of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy programmes. For the first time, the CCF openly refuses to follow a decision rendered by the Court of Justice of the European Union (“CJEU”), meaning the judgment of 11 December 2018, Case Weiss and Others, C-493/17. German constitutional judges found...

The present piece supports the view that respect for the rule of law and peace go hand in hand. The first part argues that the European Union has made it possible for disputes between different actors in the decision-making process to be resolved in accordance with the law (as European integration means not only ‘integration through law’, but above all – and more importantly – ‘integration through the rule of law’). The second part ...