Introduction to the Judicial Control of the EU Institutions

Abstract

Every developed legal system needs a system of judicial control which places fetters upon the exercise of state power. In the EU the clear mandate for such a system lies in the task of the Court under Article 164 EC to ensure that the law is observed. This was elaborated by the Court in Case 294/83 Parti Ecologiste ‘Les Verts’ v. Parliament ([1986] ECR 1339) in the following terms (at p. 1365):

‘It must first be emphasised in this regard that the European Economic Community is a Community based on the rule of law, in as much as neither its Member States nor its institutions can avoid a review of the question whether the measures adopted by them are in conformity with the basic constitutional charter, the Treaty. In particular, in Articles 173 and 184, on the one hand, and in Article 177, on the other, the Treaty established a complete system of legal remedies and procedures designed to permit the Court of Justice to review the legality of measures adopted by the institutions. Natural and legal persons are thus protected against the application to them of general measures which they cannot contest directly before the Court by reason of the special conditions of admissibility laid down in the second paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty. Where the Community institutions are responsible for the administrative implementation of such measures, natural or legal persons may bring a direct action before the Court against implementing measures which are addressed to them or which are of direct and individual concern to them and, in support of such an action, plead the illegality of the general measure on which they are based. Where implementation is a matter for the national authorities, such persons may plead the invalidity of general measures before the national courts and cause the latter to request the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling.’