The Development of the Right to an Effective Remedy Under EU Law: the Filling of Legal Gaps by the European Court of Justice
The Development of the Right to an Effective Remedy Under EU Law: the Filling of Legal Gaps by the European Court of Justice

Author(s): Allan F. Tatham
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, EU-Legislation
Published by: Правни факултет Универзитета у Источном Сарајеву
Keywords: Effective remedies in EU law; Protection of EU rights; Principles for provision of national remedies; Interpretation of EU law; Duties on national courts;
Summary/Abstract: This paper seeks to chart the European Court of Justice (‘ECJ’) evolution of the principle of the need for an effective remedy – before national courts – to protect rights of individuals and companies derived from EU law (“EU rights”). The relevant case law will be looked at to show how the ECJ used national courts' treaty-based duties of Union loyalty and sincere cooperation to force them to protect EU rights in proceeding before them.Without this protection, EU law would have lost its relevance in the eyes of individual and companies across the Union. With the EU's initial unwillingness to interfere in any way with the provision of common remedies designed to enforce EU rights before national courts, it was left to the ECJ to gradually fill these legal lacunae and to pursue a policy of developing an EU basis for the provision of remedies to protect the enforcement of EU rights before the national courts while being sensitive to national jurisdictions.By balancing EU and domestic interests in this field, the ECJ managed – to a great extent – to bridge the gaps in the protection of rights under EU law while leaving the national courts with the ultimate responsibility for providing the relevant domestic remedy under their own system.

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