Month: March 2025

Judicial independence and judges’ remuneration: echoes of the “Portuguese Judges” judgment in the joined cases C-146/23 and C-374/23

On By officialblogunioIn Case notesLeave a comment 
João Pedro Sousa (master’s student in European Union Law at the School of Law of the University of Minho)

1. Preliminary considerations

Judicial independence is a fundamental pillar of the rule of law enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU). It guarantees that judges are free from external pressures – whether from the executive, legislative branches, or private interests –, allowing them to adjudicate cases impartially and fairly. In the European Union (EU) context, judicial independence transcends the internal affairs of Member States; it is an essential safeguard to ensure the full application of EU law and effective judicial protection. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has consistently emphasised that national courts act as “European courts”,[1] applying and upholding EU law within their jurisdictions. Consequently, any impairment to the judicial independence in a Member State poses a national constitutional issue and a direct threat to the European legal order.[2]

The recent joined cases C-146/23 (Sąd Rejonowy w Białymstoku) and C-374/23[3] (Adoreikė) come at a pivotal moment as concerns over the rule of law rise in certain Member States. These joined cases addressed whether budgetary measures impacting the remuneration of judges in Poland and Lithuania, introduced through national legislation, violated EU law by undermining judicial independence. Their significance is heightened by the fact that they coincide with the seventh anniversary of the “Portuguese Judges” judgment [Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses v. Tribunal de Contas (ASJP)],[4] a landmark case that firmly established judicial independence as a fundamental element of the rule of law under EU law. As highlighted in a recent analysis on this blog, understanding the legacy of the “Portuguese Judges” judgment is essential to contextualising the challenges facing the judiciary today.[5] 

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7 years of the “Portuguese Judges” judgment – understanding where we come from so we know where we are going

On By officialblogunioIn EssaysLeave a comment
Free Close-up of a wooden judge's gavel on a black desk, symbolizing justice and law. Stock Photo
Juan Gálvez Galisteo (PhD student at the University of Seville, undertaking a research stay at the University of Minho)

I.

27 February 2018. This is the date on which the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) handed down its landmark judgment in the “Portuguese Judges” case [Associação Sindical dos Juízes Portugueses v. Tribunal de Contas (ASJP)].[1] Seven years have passed since that crucial judgment in the ongoing process of European integration. Was its importance foreseeable at the time? Could anyone have predicted that it would have such a profound impact on democratic coexistence within the European Union (EU)? What consequences did this judgment have? Does it still have an impact in the current European context? What considerations should be weighed up for the future?

This text aims to analyse these issues, albeit briefly, in order to contribute to and encourage the academic debate on the constitutionalisation of the European Union and the defence of its values, as set out in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), with special attention, for obvious reasons, to the rule of law.

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Summaries of judgments: TP v Commission | Bindl v Commission

On By officialblogunioIn Summaries of judgmentsLeave a comment 
Summaries of judgments made in collaboration with the Portuguese judges and référendaire of the General Court (Maria José Costeira, Ricardo Silva Passos and Esperança Mealha)

Judgment of the General Court (Third Chamber, Extended Composition) 18 December 2024,

Case T-776/22 TP v Commission

Public procurement – Financial Regulation – Exclusion from the proceedings of awarding of public contracts and the concession of grants financed by the Union’s budget and by the European Development Fund (EDF) for a period of two years – Significant deficiencies in complying with main obligations in the implementation of a prior contract – Article 136 (1)(e) of the Financial Regulation – No automatic link between a finding of a failure to comply with contractual obligations by the court having jurisdiction over the contract and the adoption of an exclusion measure by the authorising officer responsible – Obligation to conduct a specific and individual assessment of the conduct of the person concerned – Prior contract awarded to a group of economic operators – Joint and several contractual liability

Facts

The General Court (henceforth “GC”), ruling in extended composition, ruled, for the first time, on the question of whether article 136(1)(e) of Regulation 2018/1046[1] (henceforth “Regulation”) imposes on the authorising officer responsible, in order to apply contractual sanctions, the obligation to conduct a specific and individual assessment of the behaviour of the person concerned before deciding to exclude from participating in award procedures.

The European Commission (henceforth “Commission”) organized a procurement procedure for the award of a public works contract concerning the upgrading of a facility. The contract was awarded in 5 October 2009 to the consortium composed by the company TP, the applicant, and its partner company. The works began in November 2009 and were concluded two years later.

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Editorial of March 2025

On By officialblogunioIn EditorialsLeave a comment 
Alessandra Silveira [Editor of this blog, Coordinator of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence “Digital Citizenship and Technological Sustainability” (CitDig), UMinho]

The new world (dis)order and the European Defence Union

(on three years since the invasion of Ukraine)

On 24 February 2022, while the planet was still rising from the depths of the pandemic, barbarity returned to the European continent – all recorded by drones and satellites in a conventional war perpetrated amid the digital age. The return of war to the European continent urges us to re-read Hannah Arendt, because totalitarian solutions are still tantalisingly tempting. [1] Arendt explains that nowhere else does Fortune – good or bad – play such a decisive role in human affairs as on the battlefield. That is why violence in war carries with it an additional element of arbitrariness.[2]

In “The Origins of Totalitarianism” from 1951, Arendt traces the subterranean elements that crystallised the astonishing singularity of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century – and their systematic attempt to make human beings superfluous. The same perplexity that arises before the terrifying images of Bucha or Mariupol – but where does this horror come from? – led Arendt to coin the expression “the banality of evil”. With this concept, she wanted to explain that someone does not have to be a monster to perpetrate an evil act – and that people can commit it for banal reasons, without ever having decided whether to be good or bad, but simply because of their inability to think, to put themselves in the place of the victims, to exercise a broad mentality or the Kantian universalisation test.[3]

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