Court of Justice rejects draft agreement of EU accession to ECHR
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that the draft agreement on the accession of the European Union to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is not compatible with EU law. The ruling deals a blow to efforts to make the Union accede to the ECHR as the Lisbon Treaty requires.
The ruling was announced yesterday (18 December) by the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Asked to comment, the Commission said it would first need to study its legal arguments.
All 28 members of the European Union (EU) are also members of the 47-nation Council of Europe (CoE) and as such are bound by the CoEs European Convention on Human Rights
The Lisbon Treaty committed the EU as a whole to signing up to the convention, alongside its 28 member states and 19 other European countries including Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, for example which are not members of the EU
Currently, individuals cannot challenge EU laws and practices at the European Court of Human Rights in the same way that they can challenge national laws and practices
However, individual EU member states can be and have been held accountable in Strasbourg for putting into practice decisions agreed at the EU level
The Lisbon Treaty also provided the EU with its own Charter of Fundamental Rights, overseen by the CJEU, which is now dealing with a growing number of cases relating to fundamental rights in EU countries
The EUs accession to the ECHR is expected to address these issues, creating a single, comprehensive and coherent legal framework for protecting human rights across the continent.
Following almost three years of technical discussions, a draft agreement was finalised bynegotiators from the 47 Council of Europe countries and the EU Commission in April 2013.
In July 2013, the European Commission asked the CJEU for an opinion as to whether the draft agreement is compatible with the EU treaties.
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Court of Justice rejects draft agreement of EU accession to ECHR