EU Court Ruling on Individual Standing

Extract

[...] In fact, in practice, there is only one case in which the double condition of direct and individual link is fulfilled: it is the act whose recipient is the individual. In the other hypotheses, the rigid apprehension of Article 230§4 TCE leads to severely closing the annulment appeal of the ordinary applicants. Thus, if the direct link condition is easily met in the case of an individual measure, or of a « measure subsequent to a precise, detailed and unconditional act, it is not if it is an act falling within a discretionary power. [...]

[...] The judgment 'Union of Small Farmers of July is an illustration of this. In this case, a professional association of Spanish small farmers (UPA) is appealing against the first-instance order dated 23 November 1999 by which the court rejected its application for annulment of certain provisions of a modifying regulation of aid schemes for producers of fatty substances, and in particular olive oil. Specifically, the application for annulment was held to be inadmissible on the ground that the members of the applicant association were not individually concerned by the act in question. [...]

[...] Then, in a classical manner, the full court proceeds to examine the admissibility according to the traditional criteria to conclude that in the absence of a characterised individual link, the appeal cannot be admitted, approving the court and the Council's argumentation supported by the Commission. However, such a solution has not satisfied, far from it, the many commentators and practitioners who were expecting the Court of Justice to modify its jurisprudence in the sense of greater flexibility. In fact, this strict maintenance of the jurisprudence « Plaumann thus confirms a desire not to open the courtroom of the Community judge further to individuals. [...]

[...] However, the Court has nonetheless refused to take this route and has preferred to reiterate its strict interpretation. In particular, it rejects the neutralization of the individual link condition by the adoption of the alternative criterion of « effective judicial protection such as desired by the applicant. II. The rejection of the « effective judicial protection as a criterion of admissibility The declaration of inadmissibility did not prevent the Court from recognizing that the European Community ensures respect for the primary treaties as well as for the fundamental rights which have the value of general principles of law. [...]

[...] But it raises the argument based on a deprivation of its right to a « effective judicial protection consecutive to the declaration of inadmissibility of its appeal. In fact, the UPA notes that the new regulation could not be the subject of any challenge before the Spanish internal courts. In these circumstances, in not seeking whether the inadmissibility opposed had not the effect of leaving it without « effective judicial protection the court would have tainted its order with a mistake of law. [...]