The European Court of Justice and the Standard of Judicial Review

Abstract

In this chapter the standards of judicial review applied by the ECJ when assessing Union acts and decisions and those that are imposed by the ECJ on the national courts when reviewing decisions within the scope of Union law, are examined in comprehensive way. It is proposed that the ECJ is strengthening its grip on the level of national judicial review of those decisions and that the formerly applied national autonomy approach is gradually but surely vanishing. Instead the ECJ increasingly transports its standards of review of EU acts to the review to be conducted by the national courts of similar acts and decisions. These standards include a process-oriented review of discretion and margins of appreciation. This process review combines a strict review of the authorities’ establishment of the facts with a test of the statement of reasons. Therefore, it could better be qualified as semi-procedural. This test provides for the necessary compensation for judicial deference in relation to the substance of the decisions concerned.