How EU Law Shapes Opportunities for Preliminary References on Fundamental Rights: Discrimination, Data Protection and Asylum

Abstract

This publication explores the impact of procedural provisions inserted in EU fundamental rights legislation (in particular non-discrimination law) that are aimed at facilitating access to court in support or on behalf of victims. The papers investigate the interplay between: 1. ‘collective actors’ understood in the broad sense to cover civil society organisations and independent organisations such as equality bodies intended to represent individuals; 2. the actual litigation on EU fundamental rights law before domestic courts as it unfolds before the CJEU by way of preliminary references; and 3. the rules on access to domestic courts (shaped, to some extent, by EU legislation) as providing legal opportunity structures for preliminary references to the CJEU.