The Court of Justice of the European Union: A Human Rights Institution?

Abstract

Abstract While the original basic treaties establishing the European Communities were more or less silent on the need to respect human rights or fundamental rights, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (now the European Court of Justice) gradually came to the understanding that the principle of primacy of Community law could not in the long run be imposed against national constitutional bills of rights unless Community law itself provided some guarantees for the protection of fundamental rights. Today, fundamental rights have become part and parcel of the day-to-day work of the Court and there are even people who seem to think that the Court takes fundamental rights all too seriously. Recapitulating the general development of fundamental rights in EU law and the EU’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as comparing Luxembourg’s and the European Court of Human Rights’ case law and legal regimes, this article argues that the European Court of Justice is not a human rights court. It is but a judicial body charged with the task of ensuring that the law—which includes a vast and heterogeneous set of rules adopted and applied within a constitutional order which is quite different from the ECHR system—is observed, as required by Article 19(1) TEU.