Month: July 2024

Romania: A declaration of war from the High Court of Cassation and Justice against the Court of Justice of the European Union

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Dragoș Călin (Judge at the Bucharest Court of Appeal and Co-President of the Romanian Judges' Forum Association)
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The judgments of the Court of Justice of the European Union regarding the rule of law and the serious fraud against the financial interests of the European Union appear to have been optional for the Romanian courts, and a new interpretative decision of the High Court of Cassation and Justice – Panel for the Clarification of Certain Points of Law in Criminal Matters, Decision No 37/2024, binding erga omnes, is the last proof of this fact.

For qualified researchers, the case of the Constitutional Court of Romania is well known. By Decision No 390/2021, the Constitutional Court of Romania created a ‘brick wall’ between the national courts and the CJEU, in order to maintain the applicability of national legislation contrary to the judgment of the CJEU in Joined Cases C-83/19, C-127/19, C-195/19, C-291/19, C-355/19 and C-397/19, Asociația Forumul Judecătorilor din România and Others, by requiring national ordinary judges not to analyse the conformity of a national provision, already found to be constitutional by a decision of the Constitutional Court, in the light of provisions of European Union law.

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Summaries of judgments: Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden | NADA e o.

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Summaries of judgments made in collaboration with the Portuguese judge and référendaire of the CJEU (Nuno Piçarra and Sophie Perez)

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Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 21 March 2024, Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden, Case C-61/22, EU:C:2024:251

Reference for a preliminary ruling – Regulation (EU) 2019/1157 – Strengthening the security of identity cards of EU citizens – Validity – Legal basis – Article 21(2) TFEU – Article 77(3) TFEU – Regulation (EU) 2019/1157 – Article 3(5) – Obligation for Member States to include two fingerprints in interoperable digital formats in the storage medium of identity cards – Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Respect for private and family life – Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights – Protection of personal data – Regulation (EU) 2016/679 – Article 35 – Obligation to carry out a data protection impact assessment – Maintaining the effects for a certain time of a regulation which has been declared invalid

Facts

The request for a preliminary ruling was made in proceedings between RL, a German national, and the Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden (City of Wiesbaden, Land capital, Germany) concerning the rejection by the latter of RL’s application for an identity card which does not include RL’s fingerprints. The application was rejected due to a national provision according to which the inclusion of two fingerprints in the storage medium of identity cards is mandatory. This national provision transposes Article 3(5) of Regulation 2019/1157, on strengthening the security of identity cards of Union citizens and of residence documents issued to Union citizens and their family members exercising their right of free movement.

RL brought an action before the Verwaltungsgericht Wiesbaden (Administrative Court, Wiesbaden, Germany), seeking an order requiring the Landeshauptstadt Wiesbaden to issue him with an identity card with no fingerprints being collected. The referring court had doubts regarding the validity of Regulation 2019/1157 or, at least, the validity of Article 3(5) thereof, on the grounds that, firstly, it was adopted on an incorrect legal basis, secondly, it violates Article 35 of the GDPR and, thirdly, it violates Articles 7 and 8 CFREU.

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Responsible credit in the European Union: on the pre-contractual duty to analyse the consumer’s creditworthiness when granting credit

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Mariana Marques (Master's student in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)
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Introduction

In practice, financial institutions often grant credit without analysing the consumer’s creditworthiness. In most cases, credit is granted without analysing any variant that could compromise the borrowers’ financial capacity – and this is particularly prevalent in the granting of credit cards. Thus, any individual can obtain a credit card from most organisations without having to provide essential data, such as their salary slip, for example. Without prejudice to the consumer’s responsibility to take out credit that is appropriate to their income, would consumer credit institutions not have any duty in this regard?

On 11 January 2024,[1] the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down a ruling in which it clarified the duty to analyse the consumer’s creditworthiness –imposed on financial institutions before granting consumer credit. This pre-contractual duty, which is often (and unduly) brushed aside by the entities responsible for it, has been the subject of important developments in the new law governing consumer credit – Directive 2023/2225 of 18 October 2023.

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New UNIO issue now online

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By the Editorial Team
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The Editorial Board is happy to announce that a new issue of the UNIO – EU Law Journal is now online. The 10(1) issue of UNIO includes contributions from various highly respected scholars and young academics and heavily focuses on digital issues such as data protection and the challenges of regulating artificial intelligence.

We hope this new issue is relevant for our readers and would like to remind you that we are accepting submissions at UNIO and also at our blog.

You may find UNIO’s 10(1) issue here.