Introduction

Rights without remedies are like ‘pie in the sky’: a metaphysical meal. The Latin proverb is clear on this point: ubi ius, ubi remedium. Each right should have its remedi(es).

Classic international law leaves the enforcement of its norms to the States themselves. The administrative and judicial remedies and procedures within States are beyond its reach. When founded, the European legal order followed this logic. While it would subsequently ‘centralise’ the doctrines of direct effect and supremacy, both principles would only determine that national authorities must apply European law. However, they did not determine which national authorities must do so and according to what procedures. Were these national procedures beyond the scope of European law? Would the European Union, like the American Union, have to take State courts as it finds them? And if not, to what extent would the European legal order require national procedural laws to prevent or repair violations of European rights?

The European legal order has traditionally recognised the procedural autonomy of the Member States in the enforcement of European law: ‘Where national authorities are responsible for implementing [European law] it must be recognised that in principle this implementation takes place with due respect for the forms and procedures of national law.’ This formulation has become known as the principle of ‘national procedural autonomy’.