Wenn im Dublin-System ein Flüchtling abgeschoben werden soll, muss sichergestellt sein, dass ihn keine unmenschliche Behandlung erwartet - im Einzelfall, nicht nur im Großen und Ganzen. So sieht man das nicht nur in Straßburg, sondern auch in Luxemburg. Das hat der Europäische Gerichtshof jetzt klargestellt und damit allen, die eine Absetzbewegung vom EGMR vermutet hatten, eine grundrechtliche Lehrstunde erteilt.
Mit einem dramatischen Appell an die Verantwortung Europas will der Generalanwalt am Europäischen Gerichtshof Paolo Mengozzi dem Versagen der EU-Mitgliedsstaaten in der Flüchtlingskrise abhelfen. Nach seinem Verständnis sind sie europarechtlich verpflichtet, akut von Folter oder unmenschlicher Behandlung bedrohten Flüchtlingen aus Aleppo Visa auszustellen.
Marine Le Pen, the far-right candidate for President of France, was asked in an interview about her constitutional programme should she be elected in May. Her answer can be summarised in one word: referenda. One of them would be, of course, about “Frexit”, the other would include a vast set of amendments to the French Constitution and would take place just after the legislative elections. That, however, would not most likely not be the end of it.
Miller was essentially a case which was argued before, and decided by, the court on the basis of the English Imperial constitutional tradition forged in the Victorian age. This judgment has made the political constitution of the devolved United Kingdom as a whole more unstable, more brittle, more fragile and more likely to break-up precisely because it denies the devolved nations’ institutions any legal right to participate in the Brexit process.
Beim Gipfel von Malta will die EU in punkto Migrationspolitik Geschlossenheit demonstrieren - auch gegenüber US-Präsident Trump. Die USA schultern aber den Löwenanteil der Kosten für das UN-Flüchtlingshilfswerk und für das Resettlement von Flüchtlingen. Beides unterstreicht, dass es nicht ausreichend ist, die USA an den Pranger zu stellen. Europa als ein Verbund vieler der wohlhabendsten Staaten der Welt trifft eine moralische Pflicht, gerade in so einer Situation die Idee des Flüchtlingsschutzes als einer minimalen weltbürgerlichen Solidarität aufrechtzuerhalten. Aber auch schon die von Ratspräsident Tusk betonte „Wahrung des internationalen Rechts“ macht Europa Vorgaben, was die Grenzsicherung angeht.
2016 was not a good year for the EU. Among many other things, one of the EU’s proudest achievements, its judiciary, has shown the first signs of worrying instability: In Germany, Denmark and Italy, high-level courts have openly and harshly declared their dissatisfaction with rulings by the European Court of Justice. I would not say that these are nationalist overreactions. These are worrying (and I would add justified) signs of something going wrong.
The Italian Constitutional Court’s Tarrico judgement is worded in apparently much milder terms than the BVerfG’s preliminary reference in Gauweiler. The content of the ICC’s decision, though, seems loaded with much more dynamite. In Gauweiler, the CJEU was called to interpret an act of another EU institution. In Taricco, the CJEU is called to reinterpret its own decision, after the ICC essentially asked “please, say it again?”
On December 6, 2016, the Supreme Court of Denmark (SCDK) ruled in the Ajos case. The ruling will be read, remembered and taught as an example of defiance of clear guidelines from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) by the highest court in Denmark. EU law is an exterior phenomenon but part and parcel of Danish law. It follows that switching it off, as in Ajos, necessarily entails applying one law by breaking another. That is not a viable path for any legal system taking supranational obligations seriously.
Is Italy obliged by EU law to pursue criminal acts longer than provided by Italian law? This question might cause a fundamental clash between the Italian Constitutional Court and the European Court of Justice. Unlike the CJEU, the Italian Constitutional Court interprets a retroactive suspension of the limitation period as a matter of principle of legality, and thereby as a matter of a core principle of Italian constitutional law. By referring the case to the CJEU, the Italian Constitutional Court gives the European Court a chance to revisit its jurisdiction while avoiding the identity language of the German Constitutional Court - good news for cooperative constitutionalism in Europe.
On 19 December 2017 the Russian Constitutional Court (RCC) ruled that payment of just satisfaction in the Yukos case was contrary to the Russian Constitution. It is the first time the apex court of a Council of Europe member state concluded that it should not pay just satisfaction. This blog post provides the background of the case, sums up the reasoning of the RCC and assesses the implications of its judgment of 19 December 2017.
13. September 2025
Giovanni Capoccia
12. September 2025
Anne Peters
12. September 2025
Anne Peters