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Bradley, Kieran --- "Judicial review of EU administrative rules: to Lisbon and beyond" [2017] ELECD 429; in Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto (eds), "Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 423

Book Title: Research Handbook on EU Administrative Law

Editor(s): Harlow, Carol; Leino, Päivi; della Cananea, Giacinto

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784710675

Section: Chapter 17

Section Title: Judicial review of EU administrative rules: to Lisbon and beyond

Author(s): Bradley, Kieran

Number of pages: 23

Abstract/Description:

The law of the European Union distinguishes between the relatively liberal conditions under which an individual may challenge a decision addressed to him, and the more restricted locus standi required to challenge measures of general application. The debate concerning the proper scope of the latter has been distorted by the well-meaning but misguided assumption, apparently shared by a majority of commentators, that the direct access of individuals to the Union Courts is necessarily the best means of providing judicial review of EU administrative rules. In the judicial architecture of the Treaty, however, the courts of the Member States are the ‘“ordinary courts” within the European Union legal order’; it follows that they should, in principle, be the first port of call for individuals who seek to contest the validity of Union acts of general scope, including administrative rules, by challenging the application of such acts to their particular situation. The Treaty of Lisbon extended the right of individuals directly to impugn one important category of EU administrative rules, at the same time as it formally adopted the right to an effective judicial remedy as a fundamental right of the Union. The present chapter will first briefly revisit the Court’s much-maligned interpretation of the notion of ‘individual concern’, which limits direct access to CJEU review of administrative rules, before considering the judicial and political developments which gave rise to the Lisbon reforms, and how the new ‘third limb’ of Article 263, fourth paragraph, TFEU, has been interpreted.