EU judges oppose accession of EU to ECHR (van: UK Human Rights Blog)
Opinion of CJEU, 18 December 2014 – read Opinion
Well, here’s a thing. The EU top court in Luxembourg has decided that it is somehow against the EU treaties for it to defer in specific instances to the other European top dog, the ECtHR in Strasbourg.
Accession of the EU to the ECHR has been a very slow-burn process, with the Commission starting things off in 1979 (sic). The breakthrough, or so it appeared at the time, was the entry into force of Article 6 of the Lisbon Treaty of European Union, in December 2009. This (Art.6(2)) makes it a treaty obligation that the EU
“shall accede to the ECHR”.
Nice and simple then? No, not exactly, when you look at the extremely complex Draft Agreement on Accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights, concluded in April 2013- my post here. This seeks to make the adjustments to both the EU and ECHR institutions enabling a non-state organisation such as the EU to sign up to the ECHR.
One of the steps contemplated by the draft Agreement was the obtaining of an opinion from the CJEU on whether the Agreement was compatible with the EU Treaties. And the CJEU’s firm “non” to that question will inevitably set back the process, if not lead to its complete derailment.
The Opinion has already been well analysed by Aidan O’Neill QC here and Steve Peers here, neither in terms flattering of the CJEU. It is of some importance, so here is my penn’orth.
The gap
The underlying problem is easy to identify. The EU may commit human rights breaches but at the moment cannot be taken to Strasbourg for such breaches. Take the Commission infringing a party’s rights in a competition investigation or indeed an infringement by the CJEU itself of Article 6 ECHR. Neither can go further than the CJEU. A good example of a claim involving the latter arose in the Kokkelvisserij case (here), sequel to a famous CJEU decision (here) on a preliminary reference about the Habitats Directive. The disappointed cockle fishermen tried to go to Strasbourg, complaining that they had not had an opportunity of responding to the Advocate-General’s opinion (and, they said, errors in it) before the Court ruled against them. Strasbourg declared the claim inadmissible. The EU (EC then) had and has a separate legal personality, and further the cockle fishermen had no claim against the Netherlands arising out of the preliminary reference.
In addition, the EU legislative institutions may pass a law which is in breach of the ECHR. A citizen will not be able to complain about any breach of it unless his or her member state is also party to the enforcement of that law.
One area which would be bound to be scrutinised sooner or later by Strasbourg on any accession is the very restrictive regime for standing before the CJEU and its compatibility with Article 6: see my post here on the Inuit litigation.
Continue here: http://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2014/12/22/eu-judges-oppose-accession-of-eu-to-echr/#more-25017
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