Judicial Review Flashcards
Where do you find the Treaty base for judicial review actions in the CJEU?
Art 263 TFEU
What are the benefits of having a judicial review procedure?
- protects institutional balance
- provides effective remedies (e.g. Tobacco Advertising Case - monitors competence of EU and annuls legislation)
- ensures proprietary in decision-making
- reviews acts of institutions
Since the change in the Lisbon Treaty 2007, what acts can be challenged?
- legislative acts
- regulatory acts
What are the two categories of locus standi? Who do they apply to?
(1) privileged applicants: Commission, Council of Ministers, European Parliament, all MSs
(2) non-privileged applicants: private individuals (including companies)
What is special about privileged applicants’ standing?
It is automatic.
Which case established that for an act to be judicially reviewable it must have binding effect?
IBM v Commission
Letter informing IBM that may commence action was not a binding act as was only preparatory.
Which case established that what matters about the act for review is it’s true nature, not it’s official designation?
Confed Nationale des Producteurs de Fruits et Légumes
(Fruit and Vegetables Case)
Where decision disguised as regulation.
What is the intervening act that means that a measure breaks the causal link required for direct concern?
When MS has some discretion over the application of a measure e.g. In UNICME where Italian gov had discretion over issuing licences for imports of Japanese motorcycles.
In which case did the CJEU decide to focus the creation of legitimate expectations to establish direct concern?
Piraiki-Patraiki
Case where Commission changed import licence quota and so unable to fulfil supply to company that agreed in contract. Direct concern even though general measure as effects them specifically.
What is the Plaumann test for establishing individual concern?
Individual concern where a measure affects them: “by reason of certain attributes which are peculiar to them or by reason of circumstances in which they are differentiated from all other persons”
In which case did the CJEU decide that although the applicant was the only importer of brushes from China to the Netherlands at the time, the future number of importers was unlimited and so they were not part of the closed class under the Plaumann test?
Spijker
Which case demonstrated that the individualising factor under Plaumann is normally the granting of a licence to do something by the Commission?
International Fruit Company v Commission
In which exceptional case did the CJEU show that where there was no other alternative and there was an impact on an individual’s fundamental rights, the issue of whether the applicant was a closed class was irrelevant?
Kadi and Al Barakat
What is a strong argument in favour of a restrictive approach towards the locus standi of non-privileged applicants?
Floodgates - too many people challenging if do not have individual and direct concern requirement. E.g. Organisations bring judicial review actions for every piece of legislation.
What was AG Jacob’s favoured reform of the Plaumann test for non-privileged applicants in UPA v Council?
Applicant is individually concerned “by a Community measure where the measure has, or is liable to have a substantial adverse effect on his interests”
