The Future of National Procedural Law in Europe: Harmonisation vs. Judge-Made Standards in the Field of Administrative Justice

Abstract

Despite the European Court of Justice's repeated intervention into national procedural rules, research has shown that a process of change towards an increasing similarity of the national procedural systems has not occurred. Hence, national procedural rules used to enforce EC law in national courts largely remain different throughout the European Union. The issue which this article endeavours to analyse is whether, for the purposes of ensuring an adequate, complete and effective judicial protection to individuals deriving rights from EC law, and a uniform application of Community law throughout the Union, it would be advisable for the European legislator to enact measures containing the procedural rules that need to be applied by national administrative courts when they are adjudicating upon EC law, or whether the effective enforcement of Community law in national courts can still be safeguarded by the requirements imposed by the ECJ's case law.

Keywords: Procedural law, convergence, harmonisation, European Court of Justice, decentralised enforcement

JEL Classification: K00