General Principles of Procedural Justice

This chapter addresses general principles of EU law concerning procedural justice. It does so using two sets of procedural rights: first, the right to good administration, and, second, the right to an effective remedy. These procedural rights are central to ensuring the rule of law in the EU legal system and the accountability of the exercise of public functions in the EU. General principles of EU law within this chapter are understood as principles of constitutional character applicable throughout Union policies. In addition, many specific EU policies are governed by principles, which although general in nature, are applicable only to a specific policy sector. The working definition within this chapter is that only the former are general principles of EU law and not the latter, which are merely ‘principles’. This chapter traces the development and role of procedural principles and rights in the EU in very broad strokes. It does so in three steps: the chapter starts by briefly outlining the scope of application of the procedural general principles of EU law to sketch the depth and breadth of rights protected in this context (Section II). It then undertakes a quantitative assessment of references to procedural rights in the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) (Section III). The chapter finally concludes by discussing some possible explanations for the rise of procedural rights in EU law as general principles of procedural justice. We discuss how some of the difficulties arising from the existing situation can be remedied by the introduction of an EU regulation on administrative procedures (Section IV).