Review article
THE RULE OF LAW AND INDEPENDENCE OF THE JUDICIARY IN THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA FROM EUROPEAN LEGAL PERSPECTIVE: REVIEW OF THE HANN-INVEST CASE
Ante Elez
orcid.org/0009-0007-7758-172X
; University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law
*
* Corresponding author.
Abstract
The principle of the rule of law is one of the fundamental principles of modern liberal democracies. It poses a set of requirements before such systems, without which the rule of law cannot be fully realized. One of these essential requirements is the principle of judicial independence, i.e., the requirement for the judiciary to be fully independent. These requirements have been constitutionalized, not only within national constitutional orders, but also at the level of the European Union, particularly through the renowned Article 19 of the Treaty on European Union and Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. These provisions have been repeatedly cited in the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union when assessing the compatibility of the national regulations with the European standards. That also happened in the (Croatian) Hann-Invest case of 2024, in which the Court determined that some provisions of the Croatian Courts Act and the Court Rules of Procedure were in conflict with the requirements derived from the principle of the rule of law. The Court layed down an interpretation that the national mechanism of “legal understandings“ (Article 40 of the Courts Act) and the power of the conditional dispatch of decisions (Article 177 of the Court Rules of Procedure) were not compatible with Article 19 TEU, specifically with the requirements that this European norm (pre)supposes.
Keywords
the rule of law; the independence of the judiciary; Article 19 TEU; legal understandings; Hann-Invest
Hrčak ID:
333663
URI
Publication date:
14.7.2025.
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