'Effective Judicial Protection' of Human Rights after Lisbon: Should National Courts Be Empowered to Review EU Secondary Law?

(2010) 35 European Law Review 326-348

Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 52/2010

21 Pages Posted: 27 Jun 2010 Last revised: 7 Oct 2016

Date Written: June 26, 2010

Abstract

The article carries out a structural assessment of the EU system of protection of human rights after the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon. It compares the method of protecting human rights in EU law before and after Lisbon, and argues that the question of whether amendments introduced by the new Treaty ensure that the system of protection is complete cannot be answered unequivocally. It is only when the Court of Justice has had the opportunity to interpret art.275 TFEU that we will be able to determine whether all gaps in protecting human rights have been filled. Thus, the article advocates a return to the proposition made by A.G. Mengozzi in Gestoras and Segi as a solution to the potential problem of “incompleteness” of remedies. It explains that recognition of national courts’ power to review EU secondary-law not only complies with the existing doctrine but also improves the status of human rights in EU law and, despite suggestions to the contrary, leaves the position of the Court of Justice as the sole judicial arbiter of Union law intact.

Keywords: Effective Judicial Protection, EU Law, Human Rights, European Court of Justice, National Courts, Supremacy of EU Law

Suggested Citation

Leczykiewicz, Dorota, 'Effective Judicial Protection' of Human Rights after Lisbon: Should National Courts Be Empowered to Review EU Secondary Law? (June 26, 2010). (2010) 35 European Law Review 326-348, Oxford Legal Studies Research Paper No. 52/2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1630906

Dorota Leczykiewicz (Contact Author)

University of Oxford ( email )

St Peter's College
New Inn Hall Street
Oxford, OX1 2DL
United Kingdom

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
897
Abstract Views
3,296
Rank
48,936
PlumX Metrics