Abstract
This article focuses on the impact of art. 6.1 TEU on the jurisprudence of the European Court of
Justice. Introduced in the EU legal order by the Lisbon Treaty, this provision states that the EU
Charter of Fundamental Rights «shall have the same legal value as the Treaties». The Charter has
therefore become a legally binding text and a source of primary law of the EU. As pointed out in
the contribution, the introduction of this norm has led the Court to adopt a new approach - in cases
in which issues concerning fundamental rights are at stake - centred more on the Charter than on
general principles of EU law. In this respect, one can observe a twofold tendency in the case law of
the ECJ: first, the Court has been making wider use of the Charter as legal parameter for assessing
the validity of EU provisions; second, it has been answering to requests for a preliminary ruling by
interpreting the EU norms at issue «in the light of the Charter». Against this backdrop, the study
(also) highlights the importance of the duty of EU and national judges to interpret EU secondary
norms in conformity with the Charter. This duty of consistent interpretation arises from the status
of primary law enjoyed by the Charter and does not stem from references to the Charter in the recitals
of EU acts. According to this general principle of interpretation, acknowledged by the ECJ,
every judge must give preference – as far as possible – to the interpretation that avoids discrepancies
between the provisions contained in secondary law and the primary law (including the Charter),
preserving the validity of the EU acts.
Translated title of the contribution | [Autom. eng. transl.] The relationship between the Charter and secondary sources of EU law in the case law of the Court of Justice |
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Original language | Italian |
Pages (from-to) | 259-278 |
Number of pages | 20 |
Journal | DIRITTI UMANI E DIRITTO INTERNAZIONALE |
Volume | 2015 |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- Art. 267 TFEU
- Art. 267 TFUE
- Carta dei diritti fondamentali
- Charter of Fundamental Rights
- Corte di Giustizia
- Court of Justice
- Diritto UE
- Diritto dell'Unione europea
- EU Charter
- Interpretation
- Interpretazione
- Invalidità degli atti dell'UE
- Preliminary Ruling
- Rinvio pregiudiziale
- Trattati dell'Unione europea
- diritti dell'uomo