Category: Fundamental rights

Quod Licet Iovi non Licet Bovi. The Appointment Process to the Court of Justice and the Reform of Judiciary in Poland

By Marco Antonio Simonelli

On 8 October, four new Judges and two Advocates General officially entered into office at the Court of Justice of the European Union (henceforth ‘the Court’). Just two days before, the U.S. Senate had confirmed the appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court. Whilst the latter process had attracted the attention of media from all over the world, the appointment of the new European judges had barely made the news. This situation is reflected also in the academic world, which, surprisingly, never showed much interest in the Court’s appointment process.[1]

However, this does not mean that the procedure set out at Articles 253-255 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (henceforth “TFEU”) is immune to criticism. Two aspects in particular appear capable to negatively affect the appearance of independence of the European Judges: the duration of the mandate – 6 years – and the lack of transparency of the whole process which is dominated by national governments. These flaws may be one of the reasons why the Court had elaborated a minimal definition of the concept of judicial independence; a definition that may need to be reshaped in order to tackle the judicial reform enacted by the Polish government.

The concerns related to the transparency of the procedure and the discretion of  national executives have been partially addressed by the Lisbon Treaty, with the creation of the s.c. Article 255 Panel. This Panel, composed of senior members of national judiciaries, former members of the Court and one person chosen by the European Parliament, is charged with the task to confirm a candidate’s suitability to perform the duties of Judge or Advocate General. Notwithstanding the undoubtedly positive effects produced by the panel on the quality of candidates, serious concerns remain regarding the transparency of its work: the Council Decision 2010/124/EU establishing the operating rules of this Panel, provides that both the hearing of the candidate and the deliberations of the body shall take place in private. Hence, the introduction of Article 255 Panel has been effectively dubbed as a form of “progress by stealth”.

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The European Commission’s E-evidence Proposal: Toward an EU-wide Obligation for Service Providers to Cooperate with Law Enforcement?

By Vanessa Franssen

On 17 April 2018 the European Commission published its long awaited legislative proposal on e-evidence. This proposal – which actually consists of two strongly interconnected proposals, a Proposal for a Regulation on European Production and Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal matters (‘Proposed Regulation’) and a Proposal for a directive laying down harmonised rules on the appointment of legal representatives for the purpose of gathering evidence in criminal proceedings (‘Proposed Directive’) – is probably the first one in the field of criminal justice cooperation that the Council of the EU urged the Commission to put forward. Indeed, while the Member States are usually quite reluctant to give up sovereignty and to accept EU approximating rules in the field of criminal law, a number of Member States strongly pushed for a legislative intervention by the EU.

This is not entirely surprising: due to the increased use of all kinds of online services and information and communication technologies (ICTs), police and judicial authorities are confronted on a daily basis with the problem to collect electronic evidence, as the data they are looking for are often processed, transmitted and/or stored by foreign service providers, including big global technology companies such as Google, Facebook, Microsoft or Amazon. To compel a foreign person to cooperate in a criminal investigation is not obvious – the enforcement jurisdiction of police and judicial authorities is, in principle, limited to their own national territory.

This post will present the highlights of the double e-evidence proposal that is on the table and the first reactions to the proposals, at a moment where the institutional negotiations are picking up speed. Continue reading →

Reconsidering the blanket-data-retention-taboo, for human rights’ sake?

Belgian Constitutional Court offers CJEU chance to explain its puzzling Tele2 Sverige AB-decision

By Frank Verbruggen, Sofie Royer, and Helena Severijns

Compulsory retention, by ICT-providers, of all non-content user and traffic data, to ensure that that data will be available for subsequent use by law enforcement or intelligence, has been a controversial issue in the EU for several years now. On 19 July 2018 the Belgian Constitutional Court requested a preliminary ruling from the CJEU. Basically, it asks the EU Court to further clarify its earlier case law. The Belgian constitutional judges indicate that they find some aspects of the CJEU’s previous decisions puzzling and they also offer a new angle by explicitly linking the matter to the positive obligations of member states under the European Convention on Human Rights. The implied suggestion seems that the CJEU did not give those obligations enough weight when it found blanket data retention obligations disproportionate.   Continue reading →

A FRAGMENTATION OF EU/ECHR LAW ON MASS SURVEILLANCE: INITIAL THOUGHTS ON THE BIG BROTHER WATCH JUDGMENT

By Theodore Christakis

Last week, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) issued an important, highly anticipated judgment, condemning the United Kingdom for its mass surveillance program.

Following Edward Snowden’s revelations regarding the United States-United Kingdom intelligence surveillance and intelligence sharing programme, 16 organizations and individuals (including the NGO Big Brother Watch) filed an application against the United Kingdom before the ECtHR. The 212page-long judgment published on September 13, 2018 is rich and deals with a great variety of important issues. Several among them are directly linked to some major legal questions examined in the past by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) or currently pending before it – not to mention the ongoing debate about whether the EU-US data transfer agreement known as Privacy Shield provides an “adequate level of protection”. The objective of this piece is to provide some first thoughts focusing on the strategic place of this judgment in the European legal landscape. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: August 2018

Workshop “Engaging with Domestic Law in International Adjudication: Factfinding or Transnational Law-Making?”

University of Amsterdam, 27 February-1 March 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 September 2018.

2019 ESIL Research Forum “The rule of law in international and domestic contexts: synergies and challenges”

University of Göttingen, 4-5 April 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 September 2018.

Conference “Global Politics and EU Free Trade Policy”

Brussels, 10-11 December 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 6 October 2018.

#TILT Young Academics Colloquium “What’s #Trending in International and EU Law?”

University of Verona, 23-24 May 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 October 2018.

Call for submissions: Trade, Law & Development

Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2018.

Nuremberg Forum 2018 “20th Anniversary of the Rome Statute: Law, Justice and Politics”

Nuremberg, 19-20 October 2018. Registration necessary.

European arrest warrant and judicial independence in Poland: where can mutual trust end? (Opinion of the AG in C-216/18 PPU L.M.)

By Sofia Mirandola

The case and questions referred

In these times when “strong headwinds” are blowing against the European culture of fundamental rights and the rule of law (see P. Pinto de Albuquerque), the principles of mutual recognition and mutual trust on which judicial cooperation in the EU is based have come under pressure. The CJEU and the ECtHR are increasingly called upon to address the phenomenon of “rule of law backsliding” and to strongly defend these common values.

The recent preliminary reference submitted by the High Court of Ireland in case C-216/18 L.M. fits into such trend. It concerns the possibility to refuse the execution of three European Arrest Warrants issued by Polish courts against an individual, L.M., on account of the potential violation of the right to a fair trial ensuing from the latest controversial reforms of the judiciary in Poland. According to the Commission’s reasoned proposal to activate for the first time in history the procedure of Art. 7 TEU, which recently found the endorsement of the European Parliament calling on the Council to take action swiftly, the said reforms resulted in a breach of the rule of law due to, essentially, a lack of sufficient guarantees of external independence of the judiciary at all levels. Even though the application of the Framework Decision on the EAW can be suspended only after a Council’s decision under Art. 7 (1) TEU has been adopted (Recital 10 of the Framework Decision on the EAW), it is nonetheless inevitable that such circumstances may – from the viewpoint of the person subject to an EAW issued by Poland – entail a serious risk of breach of the right to a fair trial. The CJEU now has thus the opportunity to clarify whether an alleged lack of judicial independence amounts to a breach of the right to a fair trial that calls for the refusal to execute an EAW, as an exception to the principle of mutual trust.

Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: July 2018

Summer School «The External Dimension of EU Migration and Asylum Policies: Human Rights, Development and Neighbourhood Policies in the Mediterranean Area”

University of Barcelona, 17-21 September 2018. Deadline for applications: 20 July 2018.

Summer School “Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy”

Venice, 27 August- 5 July 2018. Deadline for applications: 31 July 2018.

Conference of the Court of the Eurasian Economic Union “International Justice and the Intensification of Integration Processes”

Minsk, 18-19 October 2018. Deadline for registration: 15 August 2018.

AALS Annual Meeting “Judicial Diversity in Transnational Courts”

New Orleans, 2-6 January 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 August 2018.

Call for papers “Irish Journal of European Law”

Deadline for submissions: 28 September 2018.

ESIL Research Forum “The International Rule of Law and Domestic Dimensions: Synergies and Challenges”

University of Göttingen, 4-5 April 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 September 2018.

Conference “Operational Cooperation in European Union Criminal Law”

University of Nantes, 1 February 2019. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 October 2018.

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: June 2018

Workshop “Constructing Legal Orders in Europe: The General Principles of EU Law”

University of Leicester, 29-30 June 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Conference “EU external relations: Tackling global challenges?”

TMC Asser Institute, 6-7 December 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 June 2018.

Call for Papers “EuConst Colloquium 2018”

Amsterdam, 5 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 1 July 2018.

Conference “Waiting for Brexit: Open issues in the Internal Market and in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”

University of Milan-Bicocca, 19 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 July 2018.

Conference “Religion and Ethnicity on the International Bench”

University of Oslo, 4-5 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 18 July 2018.

PhD Seminar “The External Dimension of the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice”

University of Luxembourg, 25-26 October 2018. Deadline for submissions: 5 September 2018.

Call for Papers “The Visegrád Group”

Anglo-American University Law Review. Deadline for submissions: 1 October 2018.

Height Discrimination in EU Law: The Case of Kalliri (C-409/16) at the Court of Justice

By Uladzislau Belavusau

Introduction

In the recent years the Court of Justice of the European Union, has pronounced twice about physical requirements as a matter of discrimination. The first case – Kaltoft (C-354/13) – concerned obesity and was briefly annotated on European Law Blog. The present commentary will look into another case from the Union’s Court – Kalliri (C-409/16) – this time regarding discrimination based on height requirements.  While it is usually excessive rather than low weight that causes discrimination, height entails a contrary correlation. By now, rich studies about stature in psychology and sociology unequivocally show that shorter people are more likely to face discrimination than their taller compatriots, with employment patterns often imitating biological dispositions about size amongst animals. Social hierarchies are, thus, clearly height-bound, permeating our public image, wages, choice of work partners and even success of presidential candidates.

What the present case of Kalliri (2017) illustrates in addition is that the stigma of short stature in employment has particular repercussions for women. Ms. Maria-Eleni Kalliri brought a complaint in front of the administrative court in Greece regarding the rejection of her application for police training due to insufficient height. The default height requirement for such applicants under Greek rules was 170 centimeters for both men and women. Ms. Kalliri fell short of this criterion by 2 centimeters and therefore complained that her dismissal was a matter of gender discrimination, since men are on average more likely to satisfy this requirement. While the lower tribunal found this to be discrimination, a higher Greek court requested a preliminary ruling from the Luxembourg court on whether the height requirement indeed constitutes sex discrimination under EU law. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: May 2018

1st International Forum of the Hungarian European Law Institute Hub – The impact and effects of Brexit on EU Law and UK Law

Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, 14 September 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 20 May 2018.

Workshop – Challenges to EU Law and Governance in the Member States

European University Institute, 8 June 2018. Deadline for registration: 22 May 2018.

Conference “OLAF and the EPPO in the new institutional setting for the protection of the financial interests of the EU”

Utrecht University, 15 June 2018. Deadline for (free) registration: 4 June 2018.

International Symposium on Religious Pluralism and European Integration: New Challenges

University of Milan-Bicocca, 28 September 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 4 June 2018.

Conference on the implementation of EU laws relating to cross-border judicial measures in civil and criminal law

Czech Bar Association, Prague, 7 June 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

The Right to Family Reunification of Unaccompanied Minor Asylum Seekers before the Court of Justice of the EU

By Silvia Bartolini

Introduction

On 12 April 2018 the Court of Justice of the EU (hereinafter, the “Court”) delivered a key ruling in A & S (case C-550/16), which hopefully marks a conscious step towards the creation of an effective EU system for the protection of children in migration.

As the Commission points out, the protection of children in all stages of migration should be “first and foremost about upholding European values of respect for human rights, dignity and solidarity. It is also about enforcing European Union law and respecting the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and international human rights law on the rights of the child” (COM (2017) 211 final). Yet their vulnerability is often denied or forgotten by Member States, especially in the mist of the so-called ‘migratory crisis’.

A & S brings forward the issue as to whether a Member State can deny both the status of being a child and the corresponding protection under EU law to a young refugee who entered its territory as an unaccompanied minor and turned eighteen while waiting for their application for international protection to be processed. In particular, could Member States be left to ‘use’ delays in the processing of children’s applications for the refugee status as a mechanism to thwart their fundamental right to family reunification?

In its children’s rights centred ruling, the Court made clear that Article 10 (3) (a) of Family Reunification Directive (Directive 2003/86/EC) creates an enforceable right to unaccompanied minor refugees to be reunited with their parents; a right which cannot be thwarted by the ‘negligent’ behaviour of the national authorities. In particular, an unaccompanied child who has turned eighteen while waiting for their refugee status application to be processed should still be considered as an ‘unaccompanied minor’ and therefore be entitled to a right to family reunification if their application is successful. Continue reading →

Mangold Recast? The ECJ’s Flirtation with Drittwirkung in Egenberger

By Eleni Frantziou

In its recent ruling in Egenberger (C-414/16), the Court’s Grand Chamber has redrawn the boundaries of a constitutional problem German courts are rather familiar with: the horizontal application of the right not to be discriminated against in situations coming within the scope of EU law. The case raises two important constitutional issues: firstly, whether the horizontal effect of EU fundamental rights must be direct; and, secondly, how the balance between conflicting fundamental rights should be reached in a private dispute. This post argues that, on the one hand, in Egenberger,the Court offers a methodologically more principled account of the horizontal effect of fundamental rights than its case law has provided to date. On the other hand, its approach towards the balance between religious freedom and non-discrimination is problematic because it does not offer the degree of clarity and guidance that is needed to accommodate horizontal conflicts of rights under the Charter framework. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: April 2018

Conference “Sovereigns and citizens in the Brexit bargain: Do rights count?” (Prof. Takis Tridimas)

Université de Liège, Amphithéâtre Portalis, 23 April 2018 (15:30-16:30).

Summer School “Parliamentary Accountability and New Technologies: Transparency, Privacy and Security Challenges”

LUISS Guido Carli University, Rome, 9-20 July 2018. Deadline for applications: 29 April 2018.

Call for papers: Edited Volume “Legal Impact Assessment of Brexit”

Deadline for submissions: 9 May 2018.

Workshop “The International Legality of Economic Activities in Occupied Territories”

T.M.C. Asser Institute, The Hague, 17 October 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 May 2018.

Conference “Procedural rights in criminal proceedings in the EU”

Universities of Utrecht, Leiden and Maastricht, 13-14 September 2018. Deadline for applications: 15 May 2018.

Conference “Human Rights Laws at a Crossroads: What Directions after Brexit?”

University of Leicester, 25 May 2018. (Free) registration necessary.

Workshop “Constitutional Protection of Minorities – Comparing Concepts, Models and Experiences in Asia and in Europe”

University of Trento, 4-5 May 2018. Registration necessary.

Summer School “Comparing Constitutional Adjudication – Islam in Constitutional Adjudication in Europe”

Dimaro, Italy, 30 July-3 August 2018. Deadline for applications: 26 April 2018.

Seminar “The Western Sahara Campaign Case”

Queen Mary University of London, 3 May 2018. Registration necessary.

Settling the dust? An analysis of Taricco II from an EU constitutional and criminal law perspective

By Giovanni Zaccaroni and Francesco Rossi

Many valuable contributions have been written (for example this blog post but also elsewhere, among many others) on the M.A.S. decision (M.A.S. and M.B., case C-42/17 a.k.a. Taricco II) and, more in general, on the Taricco saga. The majority of them, however, focus mainly on the criminal and constitutional law dimensions separately. In this contribution, we focus on these dimensions together: we believe that this decision is equally important for the relationship between the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) and the national Constitutional Courts as it is for the hazardous path of a harmonization of the general part of criminal law at EU level.

The reason why these two dimensions are usually examined separately lies on the different background of the scholars concerned. In this blogpost we have done the effort to put together and explain the importance of the M.A.S. decision from the viewpoint of a criminal lawyer and from the one of a (European) constitutional lawyer. To do that, this work will be divided in two main parts: we will firstly look at the relationship between the CJEU and the Italian Constitutional Court (ICC) (in the first part, sections I and II, written by Giovanni Zaccaroni). We will then see whether and how the decision advances the harmonization of criminal law at an EU level (the second part, sections III-V, written by Francesco Rossi). Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: March 2018

Conference “The Future of the EU and European Law”

Palacký University, Olomouc, 19-20 April 2018. Deadline for registration: 29 March 2018.

Conference “Law-Making in Multi-Level Settings – Federalism, Europe, and Beyond”

University of Antwerp, 20-21 September 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 9 April 2018.

Call for papers “European Junior Faculty Forum”

European University Institute, 12-13 July 2018. Deadline for paper submissions: 1 May 2018.

Conference “Brussels, We Have a Problem – Rethinking Justice Within the European Union”

University of Witten/Herdecke, 8-10 June 2018. No deadline for registration.

Summer School “Cinema Human Rights and Advocacy”

Venice, 27 August-5 September 2018. Deadline for registration: 20 June 2018.

The EU Single Market Information Tool: The European Commission’s new investigative power in 2018

By Gianni De Stefano and Jaime Rodríguez-Toquero

The European Commission is about to gain a new investigative power through the Single Market Information Tool (SMIT).  The SMIT will allow the Commission to request information (including factual market data or fact-based analysis) from private firms or trade associations when the Commission initiates or substantiates infringement proceedings against one or more Member State(s) that may have failed to fulfil an obligation under the applicable Single Market legislation.  This post will discuss the background of the SMIT, its purported rationale, and critically reflect on the powers granted to the Commission under the SMIT.

The Commission is at pains to clarify that the SMIT initiative does not aim to create new enforcement powers allowing it to pursue infringements of Union law in the Single Market area against individual market participants.  That said, the Single Market rules can be infringed by either Member States or private companies.  Therefore, companies responding to such information requests will not only incur administrative and financial burdens, but they will also have to be careful not to incriminate themselves in doing so, as we will see below.

Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: February 2018

Call for submissions – European Papers

No deadline.

Conference “Looking to the Future and Beyond: New Approaches to ADR”

University of Leicester, 10 May 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 28 February 2018.

Dimensions and Identities Summer School “Dimensions of Human Rights”

University of Salzburg, 23-27 July 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 30 March 2018.

Colloquium “Current Challenges for EU Cross-Border Litigation in a Changing Procedural Environment”

Max-Planck-Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, 26 September 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 April 2018.

Conference “Le règlement des différends dans les accords de l’UE avec des pays tiers”

University of Fribourg, 2 May 2018. Deadline for registration: 18 April 2018.

Summer School: “Venice School of Human Rights”

EIUC Venice School, 9-16 June 2018. Deadline for registration: 23 April 2018.

Summer School “Recent Developments on Financial Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering: European and International Perspectives”

University of Thessaloniki, 4-12 July 2018. Deadline for applications: 30 April 2018.

PNR Agreements between Fundamental Rights and National Security: Opinion 1/15

By Arianna Vedaschi and Chiara Graziani

On July 26, 2017, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) issued Opinion 1/15 (the Opinion of the Advocate General on this case had been discussed previously in this blog, part I and part II) pursuant to Article 218(11) TFEU on the draft agreement between Canada and the European Union (EU) dealing with the Transfer of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data from the EU to Canada. The draft agreement was referred to the ECJ by the European Parliament (EP) on January 30, 2015. The envisaged agreement would regulate the exchange and processing of PNR data – which reveals passengers’ personal information, itinerary, travel preferences and habits – between the EU and Canada. The adoption of the agreement is crucial because, according to Article 25 of Directive 95/46/EC as interpreted in the Schrems decision (commented here), the transfer of data to a third country (discussed here) is possible only if such country ensures an “adequate level of protection.” This standard can be testified by an “adequacy decision” of the European Commission or, alternatively, by international commitments in place between non-EU countries and the EU – as the one examined by the ECJ in this Opinion.

Not surprisingly, the leitmotiv of the Court’s Opinion is the challenging balance between liberty and security. Maintaining a realistic perspective, the Court considered mass surveillance tolerable at least in theory, because it is a necessary and useful tool for the prevention of terrorism. Yet, it insisted that there should be very strict rules as to the concrete implementation of such surveillance. For this reason, it found some provisions of the draft agreement incompatible with Articles 7 (privacy) and 8 (data protection), in conjunction with Article 52 (principle of proportionality) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (CFREU).

As a result, the agreement cannot be adopted in the current form and the EU institutions will have to renegotiate it with Canada. For sure, this renegotiation will prove to be challenging. Nevertheless, as the analysis below will show, the Luxembourg judges, by addressing particularly technical issues of the agreement, provided a detailed set of guidelines that, if respected, would ideally preserve fundamental rights – in this case, the right to privacy and to data protection – without undermining public security. Through a smooth and refined reasoning, the Court’s decision indeed suggests potential solutions to amend the draft agreement in a way that is compliant with the CFREU and, ultimately, the rule of law. Continue reading →

Neues aus dem Elfenbeinturm: December 2017

Conference “Constitutional Challenges in the EMU: the New Instruments of European Economic Governance”

Brussels, 29-30 March 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 15 January 2018.

International Electoral Observers Training

European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratisation, Venice, 19-24 March 2018. Deadline for registration: 15 February 2018.

Conference “Economic Constitutionalism: Mapping its Contours in European and Global Governance”

European University Institute, 14-15 June 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 28 February 2018.

Conference “Upgrading Trade and Services in EU and International Economic Law”

Radboud University, Nijmegen, 15 June 2018. Deadline for abstract submissions: 16 March 2018.

Call for papers: Utrecht Journal of International and European Law

Deadline for submissions: 9 April 2018.

The Global Fight against Impunity and the European Court of Justice: A New Approach to Tax Fraud as a Crime against Human Rights

by Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo

Introduction

This contribution is a comment to the blog posts of Maxime Lassalle on Taricco I and Michal Krajewski on Taricco II. In the following, I summarize some reflections developed in my article entitled “Lotta globale all’impunità e Corte di giustizia europea: un nuovo approccio alla frode fiscale come crimine contro i diritti umani”, that touch upon the core of the Taricco dispute between the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Italian Constitutional Court concerning the prosecution of value added tax (VAT) fraud.

Two very closely related issues are considered in this regard. One is that the ECJ’s view in Taricco I on the interpretation and application of the obligation to combat fraud, imposed on Member States by Article 325 TFUE, opens the way to a new approach to tax fraud as a crime against human rights. The second, logically connected, is that the alleged conflict between the interpretation of Article 325 TFEU given by the ECJ and Italian Constitutional law (the principle of legality in criminal matters as laid down by Article 25(2) Const.) is a false problem for which I present a solution.  Continue reading →