Exploring the European Council's Legal Accountability: Court of Justice and European Ombudsman

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to explore the avenues for legal accountability vis-à-vis the European Council after the Treaty of Lisbon. This will be achieved through an assessment of the jurisdictional realms of, on the one hand, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), and on the other hand, the European Ombudsman, always in relation to the European Council. Legal accountability may be understood in this respect as the supervision of the observance of the European Union (EU) rule of law. The European Ombudsman is an EU body established by the Treaty of Maastricht; by virtue of Art. 228 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), he or she has the power to investigate complaints of maladministration “in the activities of the Union institutions, bodies, offices or agencies, with the exception of the Court of Justice of the European Union acting in its judicial role.”