Basic values, judicial dialogues and the rule of law in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union: judges playing by the rules of the game

Abstract

On the assumption that the general public will trust European institutions, as long as the powers of those institutions are exercised in accordance with their proclaimed basic values, the author starts his main argument with the identification of relevant questions and ambiguities that national judges face in the fields of asylum and immigration in relation to the possible use of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The identified challenges inevitably lead the author to the next topic, which is judicial dialogue. First, he describes judicial dialogue based on Article 267 of the TFEU from the standpoint of power relations between main institutional actors involved; then he highlights the importance of informal and horizontal inter-judicial communication between judges in Europe, which could, in addition to a constitution-friendly and ECHR-friendly interpretation of European Union secondary law by national courts, substantially complement the minimum standards of the Common European Asylum System.