The Legislative Embedding of the Governance of EU Equality Law

Abstract

Earlier chapters have warned against relying too heavily on a constitutional narrative to address the protection of fundamental rights in the EU. This indeed risks hindering political debate on fundamental rights at the European level. Chapter 5 sheds light on how certain features of EU law can in contrast be usefully exploited to support political debate and the development of a fundamental rights culture at the domestic level. One of the great added values of EU intervention in the field of fundamental rights protection lies in the procedural safeguards and governance tools available under EU law: they are remarkably advanced and sophisticated for a supranational organization seeking to combat fundamental rights violations. EU equality law and policy can in that sense be treated as a laboratory for the governance of fundamental rights steered at supranational level. Specialized watchdogs, such as equality bodies, may play a particularly interesting role. Furthermore, understanding specific EU policies as being intended to promote a fundamental right opens a vast area for comparative research across the given sectors of EU fundamental rights law, leading to a better grasp of how best to enhance the governance of these rights beyond state level. By way of experiment, this chapter explores the potential for legislative and jurisprudential cross-fertilization of the notion of independent fundamental rights guardians, such as equality bodies and data protection authorities, at the domestic level.