Opinion 2/13 on EU accession to the ECHR: looking for the silver lining

Catherine Barnard, Trinity College, Cambridge

Introduction

Opinion 2/13 is a judgment for lawyers, not politicians, albeit one with major political ramifications. It engages in a detailed legal analysis of the relevant provisions of the Draft Accession Agreement (DAA), as well as key principles of EU law. This does not always make it an easy read. Others have helpfully explained the Opinion (see the Editorial comments in (2015) 52 Common Market Law Review 1); a number have been have been highly critical of it (eg Douglas-Scott, Peers, Lock). I want to see whether it is possible to adopt a more positive reading of the Opinion. My remarks focus on three points:

·         Was there a failure to see the wood for the trees in the negotiations?

·         Was Opinion 2/13 really a case of judicial vanity?

·         What are the effects of Opinion 2/13 on relations between the CJEU and the European Court of Human Rights?

Was there a failure to see the wood for the trees in the negotiations?

The submissions of the Member States and the AG’s Opinion focused on the content of the Draft Accession Agreement: are the various clauses of the agreement compatible with EU law? But I think the Court felt that the focus on the nuts and bolts of the DAA meant that the negotiators failed to look at the bigger picture, namely (1) that the EU is not a state; and (2) that EU law has special characteristics (the language of Article 1 of Protocol 8[1]) which had not been sufficiently accommodated by the DAA.

In other words, the DAA focused on the state of the soft furnishings of the house – the carpets and curtains - rather than on the structural soundness of the entire edifice. But the Court was much more concerned with the edifice rather than the soft furnishings. This is why it devoted a substantial part of its Opinion(paragraphs 153-177) to identifying the ‘specific characteristics’ of EU law which it thought risked being undermined by accession to the ECHR. It identified these specific characteristics as supremacy, direct effect, conferral of powers, institutional structure[2], as well as the principle of mutual trust[3] and fundamental rights (why so far down the list?).[4] The Court also emphasised the importance of the autonomy of EU law - that is its autonomy from both the laws of the Member States and international law.[5]The Court said that the autonomy of EU law, together with its specific characteristics, were preserved by the judicial system intended to ensure consistency and uniformity in the interpretation of EU law.[6] And the key to this system is the Article 267 TFEU preliminary reference procedure.[7] It was against this backcloth, said the Court, that the DAA had to be considered.

Having set out its stall, the Court was, I think, trying to indicate that anything in – or about - the Accession agreement which jeopardised this core contravened EU law. Putting it another way, the discussion in paragraphs 153-177 was not put there simply to teach EU lawyers to suck EU eggs; these paragraphs are integral to the logic that followed. They provided the context for the Court to consider not just the points raised by the Member States in their submissions but also the bigger constitutional picture.

This broader constitutional context also helps to explain the focus on the three substantive issues: Article 53, mutual trust and Protocol No. 16 which had featured little in the submissions and the AG’s Opinion. At first sight, it is particularly surprising that Protocol No. 16 was considered at all. It allows national courts of last resort of states signed up to the Protocol to make ‘references’ to the European Court of Human Rights for an interpretation of the Convention.[8]It was concluded after the DAA had been agreed and it has not yet been brought into force. Yet the mere existence of Protocol 16 gave the Court the opportunity to express its views on the centrality of Article 267 TFEU to the EU system and how the reference procedure might be undermined.

In other words, for the Court, the EU’s team negotiating the DAA had failed to consider this important constitutional ‘wood’, focusing too much on the ‘trees’. Addressing the concerns about the potential infringement of Article 267 TFEU, together with the issues raised about Article 53 TFEU, the principle of mutual trust and Protocol No 16, was essential before accession could take place.

Was Opinion 2/13 a case of judicial vanity?

Critics of Opinion 2/13 argue that the Court of Justice was determined to protect its supremacy at all costs. Despite the fact that all intervening Member States, the AG (with reservations), and the Presidents’ joint communication indicated support for the DAA, the Court cussedly did the opposite. Even if this narrative is correct (which I doubt - see below), I actually think there would be some justification for the Court refusing to surrender itself so absolutely to the control of a ‘higher’ court. Compared to the US Supreme Court, it is still a teenager as a court. It continues to deal with threats to its supremacy from the Constitutional Courts of the Member States. It has, more or less, successfully held off those challenges. It certainly saw off a challenge to its supremacy from the power of the UN in Kadi I.[9]There, its identification of the autonomy of EU law was largely welcomed: David was seeing off Goliath. The situation is different now. The CJEU has now assumed Goliath-like proportions. Autonomy may now be mistaken for hubris, arrogance, disdain for its sister court. However, to the Court of Justice, subordination to a ‘higher’ court might suggest the Court is not invincible. It has always been very sensitive to this possibility.

However, I am not sure that the narrative of judicial vanity is correct. After all the Court does expressly concede that EU law - and the Court of Justice - are subjecting themselves to external review.[10] It points out that:

 It is admittedly inherent in the very concept of external control that, on the one hand, the interpretation of the ECHR provided by the ECtHR would, under international law, be binding on the EU and its institutions, including the Court of Justice, and that, on the other, the interpretation by the Court of Justice of a right recognised by the ECHR would not be binding on the control mechanisms provided for by the ECHR, particularly the ECtHR, as Article 3(6) of the draft agreement provides and as is stated in paragraph 68 of the draft explanatory report.

The Court also recognises that there is an obligation on the EU to accede to the Convention. However, I think the structure of paragraphs 160-162 is telling. The emphasis is not on the obligation to accede under Article 6(2) TEU, first sentence. Rather, the Court emphasises that accession is subject to limitations: accession must ‘not affect the Union’s competences as defined in the Treaties’ (Article 6(2) TEU, second sentence), nor must it interfere with the specific characteristics of the EU (Protocol 8, protocols being of equal value to the Treaties). As the Court put it at paragraph 164:

 For the purposes of that review, it must be noted that, as is apparent from paragraphs 160 to 162 above, the conditions to which accession is subject under the Treaties are intended, particularly, to ensure that accession does not affect the specific characteristics of the EU and EU law.

This is a subtle change in emphasis but an important one. Yes, Article 6(2), first sentence, suggests an absolute obligation to accede. However, when viewed through the lens of Protocol 8 and the second sentence of Article 6(2) TEU, the Treaty provided not an absolute obligation to accede but a conditional one.[11]I think this is the line the Court took.

What are the effects of the Opinion on relations with the ECtHR?

For proponents of the thesis of CJEU vanity, the effect of the Opinion on relations with the ECtHR is disastrous. The fact that the Opinion came out just before Christmas – not a bad time to bury bad news – might support the idea that the Court of Justice had something to hide.

Again, a closer look at the judgment might refute, at least in part, this allegation. First, at no point did the Court criticise the European Court of Human Rights or its case law; its ire seems to have been directed at the EU’s negotiating team.

Second, as Peers has helpfully digested, the Court has clearly identified areas for improvement. It has thus provided a drafting ‘shopping list’ for the EU’s (new?) negotiating team. Some of these items are relatively straightforward to address. Some, especially those concerning the CFSP, mutual trust,[12]Article 53 and Protocol 16, may not be. And the logistics of renegotiating the DAA in the face of a number of intransigent states both in the EU and outside, gives considerable pause for thought.

But the fact is that the Court of Justice did not close the door on EU accession to the ECHR. Leaving it ajar, yes, but not slamming the door shut completely. And the Court of Human Rights is a sensitive institution. While its first reaction might be disappointment (see the President’s remarks on the opening of the judicial year), judicial comity will lead the judiciary in both Courts to engage – probably privately – with each other.

Conclusions

A number of commentators have been tremendously critical of the Court’s decision. Their disappointment is understandable. There was so much hope associated with accession. The effect of Opinion 2/13 is to stymie these hopes. One reading of the Opinion is that the Court did this to deliver a body blow to the ECtHR and to (re)assert the CJEU’s own supremacy. In this case the judgment is very much a political one dressed up in lawyers’ clothing. Another reading is that the Court was focused on (re)asserting the specific features of EU law, which it felt had not been adequately recognised in the negotiation process. In this case the judgment is very much a legal one.

But there may be a silver-lining. The Court of Justice has put down a marker that it thinks that it can ‘do’ human rights. It may now have to prove this. There may be more decisions like Abdida,[13]delivered by the Grand Chamber on the same day as Opinion 2/13 (discussed by Peers), where the Court adopts a pro-human rights line (sweetened by numerous references to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights). Politically this may be very important, not only to start the process of bridge building with the Court of Human Rights, but also to send out a message to its own (troublesome) constitutional courts. For what is sauce to the (CJEU) goose is also sauce for the gander of the national constitutional courts.

 

These remarks were first delivered to a seminar organised by CELS, Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge, 4 February 2015.

 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9

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[1]‘The agreement relating to the accession of the Union to the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (hereinafter referred to as the "European Convention") provided for in Article 6(2) of the Treaty on European Union shall make provision for preserving the specific characteristics of the Union and Union law, in particular with regard to: (a) the specific arrangements for the Union's possible participation in the control bodies of the European Convention;(b) the mechanisms necessary to ensure that proceedings by non-Member States and individual applications are correctly addressed to Member States and/or the Union as appropriate.’

[2] Paras. 165-6.

[3] Para. 168. See also K. Lenaerts, ‘The Principle of Mutual Recognition in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice’, The Fourth Annual Sir Jeremy Lever Lecture, All Souls College Oxford, 30 Jan. 2015.

[4] Para. 169.

[5] Para. 170.

[6] Para. 174.

[7] Para. 176. See also Opinion 1/09, ECLI:EU:C:2011:123.

[8] Art. 1 says ‘Highest courts and tribunals of a High Contracting Party, as specified in accordance with Article 10, may request the Court to give advisory opinions on questions of principle relating to the interpretation or application of the rights and freedoms defined in the Convention or the protocols thereto.’

[9] Kadi and Al Barakaat International Foundation v Council and Commission, C‑402/05 P and C‑415/05 P, EU:C:2008:461.

[10] Para. 182-5.

[11] For hints of that view, see Discussion document of the Court of Justice of the European Union on certain aspects of the accession of the European Union to the European Convention for the protection of Human Rights and Fundamental freedoms, May 2010, paras. 4-5

[12] See further A. Kornezow, ‘The Area of Freedom, Security and Justice in the Light of the EU Accession to the ECHR—Is the Break-up Inevitable?’ (2012-13) 12 CYELS 227.

[13] Case C-562/13 ECLI:EU:C:2014:2453.

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Rights, remedies and state immunity: the Court of Appeal judgment in Benkharbouche and Janah

Steve Peers

Yesterday’s important judgmentin Benkharbouche v Sudan and Janah v Libya by the Court of Appeal raised important issues of public international law, the ECHR and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, and demonstrated the relationship between them in the current state of the British constitution. The case involved two domestic workers bringing employment law complaints against the respective embassies of Sudan and Libya, which responded to the complaints by claiming state immunity, based on a UK Act of Parliament (the State Immunity Act) which transposes a Council of Europe Convention on that issue.

The question is whether invoking state immunity for these employment claims amounted to a breach of human rights law, given that Article 6 of the ECHR (the right to a fair trial) guarantees access to the courts, according to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). In turn, this raised issues of EU law, given that Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights likewise guarantees the right to a fair trial, and some of the claims concerned EU law issues (the race discrimination and working time Directives). (Other claims, such as for ordinary wages and unfair dismissal, were not linked to EU law). The two cases didn't concern human trafficking or modern slavery, although sometimes embassies are involved in such disputes too. But they would be relevant by analogy to such disputes, and there would also be a link to EU law in such cases, since there is an EU Directive banning human trafficking, which the UK has opted in to. 

The Court of Appeal, essentially following the prior judgment of the Employment Appeal Tribunal, made a careful study of recent ECtHR case law, concluding that state immunity could no longer be invoked against all employment law claims, but only against those claims concerning core embassy staff. This could not apply to domestic workers; Ms. Janah’s tasks did not involve (for instance) shooting any British policewomen.

But what was the remedy for this breach of human rights principles? At lower levels, the tribunals had been powerless to rule on the claims for breach of the ECHR, since the UK’s Human Rights Act awards the power to issue a ‘declaration of incompatibility’ that an Act of Parliament breaches the ECHR to higher courts only. So the Court of Appeal was the first court that could issue such a declaration, and it did so in this case. (The Court concluded that it could not ‘read down’ the relevant clauses in the State Immunity Act to interpret them consistently with the ECHR).

However, as compared to the effect of EU law, even a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR is relatively weak, given that the potential remedy for a breach of EU law is the disapplication of national law, even Acts of Parliament if necessary, by the national courts. So the Court of Appeal also ruled that the relevant provisions of the State Immunity Act had to be disapplied, to the extent that they were applied as a barrier to the claims based on EU law. On this point, the Court was following the Employment Appeal Tribunal, which had also ruled to disapply the Act, given that any level of national court or tribunal has the power to disapply an act of parliament if necessary to give effect to EU law.

If I had a pound for every law student who has confused the remedies in UK law for the breach of EU law with the remedies for the breach of the ECHR, I would be very rich indeed. Fortunately, the facts of this case easily demonstrate the distinction between them. Only the higher courts could even contemplate issuing a declaration of incompatibility with the ECHR; and the remedy of disapplication of the Act of Parliament is obviously stronger than the declaration of incompatibility, allowing the case to proceed on the merits (as far as it relates to EU law) rather than having to wait for Parliament to change the law in order to do so. And equally, the case shows the importance of the requirement that a case has to be linked to EU law in order for the Charter to apply: only the race discrimination and working time claims benefit from the disapplication of provisions of the Act of Parliament, and so only those claims can proceed to court as things stand.

From an EU law perspective, the most interesting point examined by the Court of Appeal was the application of the ‘horizontal direct effect’ of Charter rights, ie the application of EU law against private parties (since non-EU States aren’t bound by EU law as States, the court assimilated them to private parties). In its judgment last year in AMS (discussed here), the CJEU distinguished between those Charter rights which could give rise to a challenge against national law based on the principle of supremacy of EU law, and those Charter rights which could not, since they were too imprecise to base a free-standing Charter claim upon. The right to non-discrimination on grounds of age fell within the former category, whereas the right of workers to be consulted and informed fell within the latter category. (Note that the CJEU case law classifies this as an application of the principle of supremacy, not horizontal direct effect, although the final outcome is the same no matter how the principle is classified, at least in cases like these).

The Court of Appeal reaches the conclusion that Article 47 of the Charter is also a provision which is precise enough to be used to challenge national legislation. That’s an important point, since Article 47 is a far-reaching and frequently invoked provision, and applies not just to state immunity issues but to many broader issues concerning access to the courts (including legal aid) and effective remedies.  For that reason, this judgment is an important precedent for national courts across the European Union faced with challenges to national laws based on Article 47 of the Charter, although of course it doesn’t formally bind any court besides the lower courts of England and Wales.

The Court didn’t need to rule on whether the substantive Charter rights raised by these cases would have the effect of disapplying national law, since it wasn’t ruling on the merits of the cases, but only on the issue of access to court. If it were ruling on the substantive issues, it would seem obvious that race discrimination claims have the same strong legal effect as age discrimination claims, as both claims are based on the same provision of the Charter (Article 21). However, claims based on breach of Article 31 of the Charter (the working time provision) might not have that strong legal effect. Indeed, an Advocate-General’s opinion in the pending case of Fennoll has concluded as much.

Furthermore, the social rights in the Charter (such as the rights set out in Article 31) are subject to a special rule in the Protocol to the EU Treaties which attempts to limit the effect of the Charter in the UK and Poland. The CJEU ruled in its NS judgment that this Protocol does not generally disapply the Charter in the UK, but it did not then rule if the Protocol might nonetheless affect the enforceability of social rights. Given that yesterday’s judgment was about Article 47 of the Charter, not about a substantive social right, it was not necessary for the Court of Appeal to grasp this nettle either.

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9, chapter 20

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The CJEU and the EU’s accession to the ECHR: a clear and present danger to human rights protection

 

Steve Peers

At long last, the CJEU has today delivered its ruling regarding the EU’s accession to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It’s a complex judgment that raises many legal questions. For now, this post seeks to provide: a summary of the ruling; an assessment of the consequences of the ruling; and an initial critique of the Court’s reasoning. On the latter point, the Court’s ruling is fundamentally flawed. In short, the Court is seeking to protect the basic elements of EU law by disregarding the fundamental values upon which the Union was founded.

Background

Back in 1996, in Opinion 2/94, the CJEU ruled that as European Community law (as it then was) stood at that time, the EC could not accede to the ECHR. Only a Treaty amendment could overturn this judgment, and in 2009, the Treaty of Lisbon did just that, inserting a new provision in the Treaties that required the EU to accede to the ECHR (Article 6(2) TEU). That treaty also added a Protocol 8 to the Treaties, regulating aspects of the accession, as well as a Declaration requiring that accession to the ECHR must comply with the ‘specific characteristics’ of EU law.

 

However, these new Treaty provisions could not by themselves make the EU a contracting party to the ECHR. To obtain that outcome, it was necessary for the EU to negotiate a specific accession treaty with the Council of Europe. After a long negotiation process, this accession treaty was agreed in principle in 2013. Today’s ruling by the CJEU concerns the compatibility of that treaty with EU law.

 

Summary

At the outset, the CJEU ruled that the case was admissible (paras 144-52), even though the internal rules which will regulate the EU’s involvement in the ECHR have not yet been drafted. In fact, the CJEU said that these internal rules couldn’t be the subject-matter of the opinion, even if they had been drafted. The UK government had reportedly been very angry about the prospect of the CJEU considering these internal rules, so it should be satisfied on this issue.

 

Next, the Court made some preliminary points (paras 153-77), asserting for the first time expressly that the EU is not a state (para 156); and (in effect) that the EU system is sui generis (para 158), ie in a class by itself, without using that exact Latin phrase. Those critics of the EU who consider it to be a State, and those academics who dislike the sui generis concept, now have some words to eat.  The Court also asserted that it was important to ensure the primacy and direct effect of EU law, referring also to the EU’s goals of ‘ever closer union’.

 

The Court then ruled that the draft agreement was incompatible with EU law, for five main reasons. Firstly, it did not take account of the specific characteristics of EU law (paras 179-200), in three respects.  It did not curtail the possibility of Member States having higher human rights standards than EU law, even though the CJEU had ruled (in the Melloni judgment of 2013) that Member States could not have higher standards than the EU Charter of Rights, where the EU has fully harmonised the law. The same rule applies to the ECHR, in the Court’s view, and the draft agreement did not take account of this. Similarly, the draft agreement did not provide for the application of the rule of ‘mutual trust’ in Justice and Home Affairs (JHA) matters, which means that Member States must presume that all other Member States are ‘complying with EU law and particularly with the fundamental rights recognised by EU law’, other than in ‘exceptional circumstances’. Also, the agreement failed to rule out the possibility that when applying Protocol 16 to the Convention, which provides for national courts to send questions to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the interpretation of the ECHR, those national courts would ask the ECtHR to rule on EU law issues, before they asked the CJEU. This would circumvent the EU’s preliminary ruling procedure.

 

Secondly, the draft accession agreement violated Article 344 TFEU, which gives the CJEU monopoly on inter-state dispute settlement regarding EU law between Member States (paras 201-14), since it failed to rule out the possible use of the ECtHR to settle such disputes instead.

 

Thirdly, the co-respondent system set up in the draft agreement, which creates a new type of procedure where both the EU and a Member State could be parties to an ECtHR case, was incompatible with EU law for three reasons (paras 215-35). The problem with this process was that: it would give the ECtHR the power to interpret EU law when assessing the admissibility of requests to apply this process; a ruling by the ECtHR on the joint responsibility of the EU and its Member States could impinge on Member State reservations to the Convention; and the ECtHR should not have the power to allocate responsibility for breach of the ECHR between the EU and Member States, since only the CJEU can rule on EU law.

 

Fourth, the rules in the draft treaty on the prior involvement of CJEU before the ECtHR ruled on EU law issues were also incompatible with EU law, for two reasons (paras 236-48). They did not reserve to the EU the power to rule on whether the CJEU has already dealt with an issue, and they did not permit the CJEU to rule on the interpretation, not just the validity, of EU law.

 

Finally, the rules on theCommon Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) were incompatible with EU law (paras 249-57), because a non-EU court cannot be given the power of judicial review over EU acts, even though the CJEU has no such jurisdiction itself as regards most CFSP issues.

 

Consequences

 

First and foremost, EU accession to the ECHR obviously cannot go ahead on the basis of the current draft agreement. The Court has in effect provided a checklist of amendments to the accession agreement that would have to be made to ensure that accession is compatible with EU law. The amendments would have to deal with the following ten issues: (a) ensuring Article 53 ECHR does not give authorisation for Member States to have higher human rights standards than the EU Charter, where the EU has fully harmonised the law; (b) specifying that accession cannot impact upon the rule of mutual trust in JHA matters; (c) ensuring that any use of Protocol 16 ECHR by national courts cannot undermine the EU preliminary ruling system, presumably by ruling out the use of Protocol 16 where EU law issues are involved; (d) specifying expressly that Member States cannot bring disputes connected with EU law before the ECtHR; (e) ensuring that in the co-respondent system, the ECtHR’s assessment of admissibility does not extend to the power to interpret EU law; (f) guaranteeing that the joint responsibility of the EU and its Member States for ECHR breaches cannot impinge upon Member State reservations to the Convention; (g) preventing the ECtHR from allocating responsibility for ECHR breaches as between the EU and its Member States; (h) ensuring that only the EU institutions can rule on whether the CJEU has already dealt with an issue; (i) providing that the CJEU should be allowed to rule on the interpretation, not just the validity, of EU law, during the ‘prior involvement’ procedure; and (j) curtailing the role of the ECtHR to rule on EU foreign policy matters.

 

Any such changes to the accession agreement will have to be negotiated by all 47 of the signatories to the ECHR. The accession agreement would, if agreed, then have to be ratified by all of these States to come into force. It would also have to be agreed unanimously by the EU Council, and ratified by the European Parliament.

 

It’s hard to say in the abstract how difficult such a renegotiation will be. Suffice it to say that the compromise found in the current accession treaty was very difficult to reach, and it’s hard to imagine that the EU’s demand for a ten further amendments to that text – which would necessarily be non-negotiable – would be received happily. 

 

Some of the Court’s objections probably correspond with the intentions of the parties to the accession agreement, and it should be easy to accept amendments reflecting that. However, some of them insist on either the primacy of the EU Courts over the ECtHR, or would give priority to EU law over the substance of the rights protected by the Convention. Those amendments would be difficult to agree in principle, and it might even be doubted whether they would be compatible with the intrinsic nature of the ECHR.

 

If those amendments were indeed be incompatible with the ECHR, there would be no point wasting further time and effort on negotiating them. So it would be best for the Committee of Ministers to invoke Article 47 ECHR, which allows it to ask the ECtHR to give an advisory opinion on the interpretation of the Convention or its protocols. Arguably, this doesn’t extend to the draft accession agreement, but then that agreement in its current form would amend the ECHR; any revised agreement would likely amend the ECHR even more. The ECtHR ought to have a chance to rule on whether the CJEU’s preferred amendments to the ECHR violate the fundamentals of the Convention system.

 

Could the Court’s objections (or some of them) be met by the EU making reservations to the ECHR? According to Article 57 ECHR, reservations to the Convention are permitted, provided that they are not of a ‘general character’. The ECtHR has ruled in the past that some reservations were invalid for breaching that rule. Much legal pain would be avoided if the ECtHR ruled in advance (using the advisory procedure) on whether possible reservations by the EU would be valid. Arguably reservations relating to CFSP or JHA matters would indeed be invalid, due to their ‘general character’.

 

What if the process of EU accession stalls as a result of this judgment? It’s hardly an unlikely scenario. As a matter of EU law, accession of the EU to the ECHR is an obligation: the EU ‘shall accede’ to the Convention. The EU institutions can be sued for any ‘failure to act’ to comply with their legal obligations. So arguably the Commission is under an obligation to request an amendment to its negotiation mandate, the Council is under an obligation to grant it, and the Member States are obliged to support the EU position (a breach of the latter obligation could be punished by means of infringement proceedings).

 

But a legal obligation deriving from the EU Treaties cannot bind third parties. If the ECtHR, or one or more non-EU Member States, refuse to continue with negotiations for accession on the basis of the CJEU’s demands, the EU institutions and the Member States could not be held liable for that.

 

The legal obligation to continue the accession process is, of course, distinct from the question of principle here: whether the accession process ought to continue on the basis of the CJEU opinion. I now turn to that question, as part of my assessment of the Court’s reasoning.

 

 

Comments

 

There are two categories of objections to the ECHR accession in the Court’s judgment: procedural and substantive. The former are, for the most part, much less problematic than the latter. Let’s consider them in turn.

 

The procedural objections are essentially those in points (c) to (i) in the list above, concerning: Protocol 16 ECHR and the preliminary ruling process; inter-state dispute settlement; the co-respondent procedure; the prior involvement procedure; and CFSP matters. Seven of these eight points have one thing in common: preserving the CJEU’s power to rule on EU law. The exception is point (i), because to a large extent, the CJEU has no power to rule on CFSP matters. 

 

From the point of view of substantive human rights protection, that first group of seven objections is not problematic in principle. It is reasonable for the CJEU to ensure that issues relating to EU law remain within its jurisdiction (where that jurisdiction currently exists), leaving the ECtHR jurisdiction to rule on the interpretation of the ECHR. Of course, it will be hard, if not impossible, in practice, to separate the two issues, particularly when it comes to ruling on the liability for breach of the Convention and the admissibility of the special procedures set up by the draft agreement. 

 

But that is a minor problem compared to the Court’s objections relating to CFSP, and to the substance of the ECHR. On the CFSP point, the Court’s objection is quite simply mind-boggling. Human rights breaches unfortunately occur in foreign policy operations, ranging from violations of the right to life, to arbitrary detention to human trafficking by foreign forces. The CJEU has no jurisdiction to protect, as regards most CFSP matters; but it rules that the ECtHR cannot have judicial review powers either. (Note to public international lawyers: this must mean that it would also breach EU law for Member States to bring a CFSP dispute to the ICJ).

 

This goes beyond setting a dividing line over which Court has jurisdiction to interpret EU law: to repeat, the CJEU’s position is that if it can’t have jurisdiction over CFSP, then no other international court can either. In short. since it isn’t allowed to play, it’s taking the football away from everyone else. It’s the judicial politics of the playground. But it could have serious consequences, leaving the victims of serious human rights violations without an effective remedy at international level. Or is the entire world meant to trust that the military forces from the continent that brought us the Holocaust and two World Wars would never, when acting under the EU’s aegis, commit human rights offences?

 

This brings us to the two substantive points: the need to ensure that Member States do not set higher standards within the field of EU law, and the need to protect the principle of mutual trust in JHA matters. On the first point, the Court is today extending to the ECHR its long-standing principle that the primacy of EU law prevents Member States having higher human rights standards, where EU law has fully harmonised the matters concerned. From an EU law perspective, it’s perhaps not surprising that this rule – which the Court had previously applied to the general principles of EU law (the main previous method of protecting human rights in the EU legal system) and the Charter – also applies to the ECHR. But from the perspective of international human rights law, it’s shocking: it cuts into a central principle found in all human rights treaties.

 

The Court’s ruling on this point would be less problematic if it were not for its ruling on mutual trust in JHA matters. After all, if it were possible to resist removal to another Member State on human rights grounds despite the Dublin rules on asylum responsibility, or to resist the execution of a European Arrest Warrant on such grounds, then many violations of human rights in individual cases would be avoided. But the Court reiterates, in very strong terms, its established presumption that the EU is built on the principle of mutual trust in this area, which can only exceptionally be set aside. One can infer that the CJEU is seething about the ECtHR’s recent judgment in Tarakhel, which conspicuously failed to defer to the ECJEU’s poorly reasoned defence of the Dublin system in last year’s Abdullahi judgment (see discussion here).

 

On the JHA point, the Court is insisting that its own conception of the EU JHA system must prevail over human rights protection as defined by the ECtHR. The underlying theme of both of these substantive points is that the ECHR should adapt to EU law as defined by the CJEU, not the other way around.

 

Is that fundamentally justifiable? It’s striking that the ‘values’ of the EU – which are a condition for EU membership, and which could lead to suspension of a Member State in serious cases – include human rights and related principles. There’s no mention of the primacy of EU law, of mutual trust in JHA matters, or of divesting any international court from having jurisdiction over CFSP matters. Indeed, on the latter point, today’s judgment clearly shows contempt for the ‘rule of law’, another founding value mentioned in Article 2 TEU. And for JHA in particular, the Treaty drafters provided in Article 67(1) TFEU that the EU must ‘constitute an area of freedom, security and justice with respect for fundamental rights’. The Treaty doesn’t give priority to mutual trust over human rights – quite the opposite.

 

This leads me to a final point. As noted above, the EU retains a legal obligation to accede to the ECHR, and must therefore take some steps to that end. But, as a matter of principle, is it still worth advocating EU accession to the Convention?

 

Quite frankly, EU accession to the Convention, in the terms defined today by the CJEU, could only appeal to those who don’t like human rights very much. In fact, in many respects the Court’s judgment is essentially a more articulate and EU-specific version of the document recently produced by the UK’s Justice Minister, which sought changes to the law to ensure that the UK would be free to do as it wished as regards human rights issues, while (possibly) nominally remaining a signatory of the ECHR. Of course, those who dislike the ECHR tend to dislike the EU as well, so this is a narrow basis politically to go forward. In particular, those who would like to scrap the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) because of the miscarriages of justice which it sometimes produces (rather than try and prevent those miscarriages) are hardly likely to favour a process which would be specifically aimed to entrench those failings.

 

As for those of us who support human rights protection, today’s judgment is an unmitigated disaster. For the most part, human rights advocates have supported EU accession to the ECHR for many years, in order to ensure effective external control of the failings of the EU and (within the scope of EU law) its Member States as regards human rights. But today’s CJEU judgment has surgically removed that key reason for supporting accession.

 

Far from enhancing the protection of human rights within the EU legal order, the EU’s accession to the ECHR, on the terms which the CJEU insists upon, would significantly diminish it, for the EU would be compelled to ensure that it insulates itself against many human rights claims that might be brought against it.

 

So for the sake of those who are trafficked by EU-coordinated troops, who are suffering miscarriages of justice in EAW proceedings, who are being pushed back from the EU’s shores, drinking from toilets in immigration prisons, starving on the streets because Member States won’t or can’t give them housing or benefits, or drowning in a desperate attempt to reach European refuge, we now have a moral duty to reject the EU’s accession to the ECHR.

 

 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 9

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Tarakhel v Switzerland: Another nail in the coffin of the Dublin system?

 

Steve Peers

Introduction

Despite the EU’s purported adherence to high standards of human rights protection, the EU’s Dublin system, which allocates responsibility for each asylum-seeker’s application to a single Member State, has repeatedly run foul of human rights standards. Yesterday’s judgment of the European Court of Human Rights (‘ECtHR’, or ‘Strasbourg Court’) in Tarakhel v Switzerland, and the recent judgment of the same court in Sharifi v Italy and Greece, have further confirmed the problems in making this system compatible with ECHR obligations.

In fact, the Tarakheljudgment goes further than the prior judgments, which had merely exposed the lack of sufficient human rights protection in the EU legislation, as applied by Member States. Rather, it is now clear that the approach of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in interpreting the Dublin rules is also incompatible with the ECHR.

Background

The Dublin rules initially appeared as part of the Schengen Convention, which bound only certain Member States. They were then set out in the form of the Dublin Convention, signed in 1990. This Convention was replaced by an EC Regulation (known as the ‘Dublin II Regulation’) from 2003. That Regulation was in turn replaced by the Dublin III Regulation, adopted in 2013, which applies to all applications made after 1 January 2014. Furthermore, the Dublin rules have been extended to the non-EU countries associated with the Schengen system, by means of treaties with Norway and Iceland on the one hand, and Switzerland and Liechtensteinon the other.

The previous leading cases on the compatibility of the Dublin regime with human rights were (for the Strasbourg court) the 2011 judgment in MSS v Belgium and Greece, and (for the CJEU) the judgment in NS, delivered later that same year. In MSS, the ECtHR ruled that Greece had violated Article 3 ECHR (the ban on torture or other inhuman or degrading treatment) in three ways: its treatment of the Afghan asylum-seeker in question in detention; its failure to secure adequate living conditions for him after release from detention; and its highly deficient asylum procedure. The evidence of these violations was found in numerous reports by NGOs and international bodies. The Court also ruled that Belgium had violated Article 3 ECHR because it had returned the same asylum-seeker to Greece (in accordance with the Dublin rules), even though it must have known of the situation there. For good measure, the Court also ruled that Belgium had violated Article 13 ECHR (the right to an effective remedy), since Belgium did not provide for sufficient reviews of the merits in cases such as this one.

Subsequently, the CJEU ruled in NS that asylum-seekers could not be returned to Greece, pursuant to the Dublin rules, because of systematic deficiencies in the asylum system in that country. Removals in such cases would constitute a breach of Article 4 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (the equivalent of Article 3 ECHR). However, the Court distinguished such major breaches of fundamental rights from minor violations of EU or international rules relating to refugees, which would not require Member States to refrain from applying the Dublin rules.

Before the ECtHR could rule in Tarakhel, the CJEU clarified its position in its judgment in Abdullahi, delivered late in 2013. The Court started out by emphasising the presumption that all EU Member States protected human rights, noting that there was now second-phase legislation establishing the Common European Asylum System. It then characterised the Dublin rules as essentially regulating the relationship between Member States, referring in particular to the optional ‘sovereignty’ and ‘humanitarian’ clauses in the Dublin II Regulation, as well as the possibility of conciliation or separate arrangements between Member States. It followed that when two Member States agreed which of them was the Member State of first authorised entry (triggering responsibility under the Dublin rules), an asylum-seeker could ‘only’ challenge that decision by ‘pleading systemic deficiencies in the asylum procedure and in the conditions for the reception of applicants for asylum’ in the Member State which was deemed responsible for the asylum application.

Finally, the recent Sharifijudgment pf the Strasbourg Court established that Italy’s interception of asylum-seekers from Greece in the Adriatic, and their forced return to Greece, violated Article 3 ECHR as well as the ban on collective expulsions in the Fourth Protocol to the ECHR. In doing so, it confirmed a key corollary of the MSS ruling: Member States breach the ECHR if they stop asylum-seekers fleeing an unsafe country directly from crossing their borders. Although the rules on freedom to travel for third-country nationals in the Schengen Convention do not give asylum-seekers the right to move between Schengen States (unless, improbably, they have a visa or residence permit, or the visa requirement is waived for their country of origin), the ECHR nevertheless gives asylum-seekers the freedom to travel between Schengen countries (or any States) in such circumstances. Also, the right to move to another country extends beyond the three-month time limit on intra-Schengen travel, since asylum-seekers can in principle stay until their claim is finally rejected.

The Tarakhel judgment

Yesterday’s judgment concerned a family of eight Afghans, who entered the EU by crossing the Italian border first. This made Italy responsible for their applications under the Dublin rules. However, the family soon left the asylum-seekers’ reception centre which they were assigned to in Italy, on the grounds that conditions there were inadequate for families. They moved to Austria, which triggered the Dublin rules, asking Italy to take charge of them. Italy agreed, but before their transfer to Italy could be carried out, they moved on to Switzerland. That country in turn asked Italy to take charge of the family; Italy tacitly accepted.

However, they challenged their removal to Italy on the grounds that their treatment in that country, if they were removed there, would violate Article 3 ECHR. They lost their case in the Swiss courts, so asked the ECtHR to rule that their removal to Italy would constitute a breach of Article 3, as well as Article 8 ECHR (the right to family life). They also alleged a breach of Article 13.

The ECtHR rejected the Article 13 claim on the merits, since the Swiss courts had examined the merits of their legal arguments and they were allowed to stay on Swiss territory in the meantime. It held that it was not necessary to examine the Article 8 argument. Most importantly, by a majority of 14-3, it found that there was a breach of Article 3 ECHR.

Yet there are important differences between the MSS judgment and the Tarakhel judgment. Yesterday’s judgment does not state that Italy’s asylum system has effectively collapsed, as was the case in Greece. In particular, there were no allegations in Tarakhelrelating to flaws in Italy’s asylum procedures, or as regards detention. The argument instead was solely about living conditions in Italian detention centres.

The ECtHR began by reiterating its case law from MSS about reception conditions for asylum-seekers. While Article 3 ECHR did not guarantee a home or financial assistance, in cases involving EU Member States the Court took account of their specific obligations in that respect under the EU’s reception conditions Directive. Also asylum-seekers were an ‘underprivileged and vulnerable group’, and it was possible that extreme poverty could raise issues under Article 3. The Court also referred to other prior case law on the need to ensure that child asylum-seekers, who were in a position of ‘extreme vulnerability’, enjoyed ‘protection and humanitarian assistance’.

Next, the Court reiterated the usual rule that Article 3 prevents removal if ‘substantial grounds have been shown for believing’ that there is a ‘real risk’ of treatment contrary to Article 3 in the state of destination. The same rule could be used to rebut the assumption that countries applying the Dublin system were all safe. In this context, the ECtHR referred to the CJEU’s ‘systemic deficiencies’ test set out in the judgment in NS, but made no reference to the ruling in Abdullahi that this was the ‘only’ ground for challenging the application of the Dublin rules. However, the ECtHR also ‘notes’ the recent EM judgmentof the UK Supreme Court, which expressly stated that ‘systemic deficiencies’ were not the only ground for such challenges. Overall, the Court stated that these tests had to be applied by examining ‘the applicant’s individual situation in light of the overall situation prevailing’ in the state of destination.

Applying these rules to this case, the applicants had made three complaints about the situation of the Italian reception system. The first complaint, about the slowness of identification procedures, was dismissed out of hand, since the applicants had in fact been identified quickly. As for the second complaint, the Court accepted the evidence that there were not enough places for all asylum applicants. Thirdly, as for the reception conditions within the available facilities, a number of problems had been identified by the UNHCR and the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner.

Taken as a whole, then, the Court ruled that the ‘current situation in Italy can in no way be compared to the situation in Greece at the time of the MSS judgment’, where only a small fraction of asylum-seekers could be accommodated and ‘the conditions of the most extreme poverty…existed on a large scale’. So there could not be ‘a bar to all removals of asylum seekers to that country’. Having said that, the Court accepted that there was some risk that asylum-seekers might not get accommodation, or that the accommodation would be inadequate.

As for the individual position of the applicants, that was not comparable to the facts of the MSScase either.  The family in this case were taken care of immediately by the Italian government, rather than detained and then left to fend for themselves. But again, having said that, the Court was concerned that, in light of the vulnerability of asylum-seekers, and children in particular, there was no guarantee of (adequate) accommodation for families seeking asylum in Italy. So Switzerland could not send the family to Italy unless they obtained sufficient assurances on this point. This alone constituted a breach of Article 3 ECHR.

Interestingly, the majority judgment makes no reference to the alternative possibility of asylum-seekers obtaining private family housing at the expense of the State, which the CJEU developed in its recent Saciri judgment on the reception conditions Directive.

Comments

With great respect, there are many flaws with the CJEU’s judgment in Abdullahi. That judgment confuses Regulations (directly applicable in national legal systems) with Conventions (essentially governing relations between States). It places undue reliance on provisions of the Dublin II Regulation which were never applied in practice (conciliation) or were irrelevant to the case at hand (separate arrangements between Member States). It ignores the CJEU’s own case law on the ability to challenge Member States’ application of the Dublin II rules as regards unaccompanied minors (MA), humanitarian situations (K) or withdrawn applications (Kastrati). Its scope is unclear: does it only apply when Member States agree that the criterion regarding irregular entry is applicable, or in other cases as well? In any event, the judgment needs to be rethought in light of the Dublin III Regulation, which considerably expanded the procedural rights of asylum-seekers in the Dublin context. Why do that, if they can only challenge their transfer if there is a complete breakdown in the asylum system of the State responsible for their application?

But the most fundamental flaw in the Abdullahi judgment is exactly that: the CJEU’s statement that at least in some cases, the determination of the responsible Member State can ‘only’ be challenged if there are ‘systemic deficiencies’ in the asylum system of that State. Is that statement still correct after Tarakhel?

Certainly the statement is wrong if the CJEU meant (as it appeared to say) that both the asylum procedure and the reception conditions systems have to have failed in the responsible Member State, before a transfer to that State can be challenged. In Tarakhel, there is no issue raised regarding the asylum procedure in Italy. More generally, the Italian reception system is not in complete breakdown: the Tarakhel family faces neither extreme poverty nor vile detention conditions, but merely some risk that accommodation will either not be available or that it will be somewhat unpleasant. Accordingly, the Swiss obligations are nuanced: there is no ban on transfers, merely a procedural obligation to make arrangements with the Italian authorities.

It isn’t clear whether Tarakhelabandons the CJEU’s assumption that only ‘systemic deficiencies’ in the asylum system of a responsible State can justify a challenge to a Dublin transfer, or whether the judgment merely modifies the notion of ‘systemic deficiencies’ considerably, lowering the threshold for its application. On the first hypothesis, ‘systemic deficiencies’ are just one example of a situation that could lead to rebuttal of the assumption that another Dublin State is safe. Uncertainty about adequate reception conditions for families is another. But surely this cannot be an exhaustive list.

On the second hypothesis, a ‘systemic deficiency’ would not exist only where an asylum system had entirely collapsed, but where some particular aspect of the system was malfunctioning regularly to some extent. By analogy, a car needs to be fixed not only when the brakes entirely fail to work, but also when the windshield wipers occasionally malfunction. The risk is far greater in the first case, but the second case shouldn’t be ignored either. Again, the problems in Tarakhel cannot be the only example of a flaw in the asylum system of a responsible Member State that needs to be fixed before asylum-seekers can be transferred there.

There isn’t much difference between these two possible interpretations of Tarakhel. Although the first interpretation is in principle more open-ended than the second one, it shouldn’t take too much imagination to argue that any particular problem an asylum-seeker might face in the responsible Member State is ‘systematic’ in this very broad sense. The second interpretation does give the CJEU more leeway to back down from its head-banging judgment in Abdullahi, and explain that this was also what it had meant by ‘systemic deficiencies’ all along.

Of course, given the strong insistence on the efficiency of the Dublin system in the Abdullahijudgment, this is obviously not what the Court had meant at the time. Yet the clear message from the Tarakhel case is that there is not a simple binary distinction between cases when all Dublin transfers should stop, on the one hand, and cases when all Dublin transfers should go ahead at full speed, on the other. Instead, like a traffic light, yesterday’s judgment creates an intermediate category of cases in which national administrations must proceed with caution. This will undoubtedly make the Dublin system more costly and complex to administer, but that is often the only way to ensure that human rights are protected effectively.  

Barnard & Peers:  chapter 9, chapter 26

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