Description
Over the past decade, the rule of law has moved to the centre of interest of European integration. This is largely due to a regressive development in some Member States (a trend often referred to as rule of law ‘backsliding’). The process of rule of law backsliding appears to follow certain patterns, including political actions and legislative interventions aimed at systematically weakening or even disabling elements of checks and balances.
Since the entry into force of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in 2009, the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) has issued numerous rulings highlighting links between the rule of law and fundamental rights, especially in the context of Article 47 of the Charter. The European Court of Human Rights, in its 2022 case of Grzęda vs. Poland, qualified the European Convention on Human Rights as “essentially a rule-of-law instrument”. The effective protection of all fundamental rights hinges on the existence of the rule of law, including judicial independence and access to a fair trial. The 2023 annual report of the European Commission on the application of the Charter focused on access to justice and judicial remedies, being essential elements of the rule of law.
This research aims at providing examples and avenues for how upholding fundamental rights can be instrumental in addressing and preventing rule of law backsliding on the national level. The starting point of the research is that fundamental rights and the rule of law are intrinsically linked, so that protection of fundamental rights may also serve a more ‘systemic’ rule of law function. The research aims at identifying specific and important examples of cases where the protection of fundamental rights (individual entitlements) has been directly linked to the protection of the rule of law in the overall legal-political system, thereby also gaining a more systemic function beyond the individual entitlement.
