THE POSITION OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE EUROPEAN UNION THROUGH THE LENS OF THE ACCESS TO JUSTICE

Abstract

This paper aims to question the position the individual has in the European legal sphere, understanding it as a fundamental topic within the frame of general international law. Since the positive international law lacks a normative definition of the subject, partly because of the inherent complexity of the problem, and partly because of the terminological inconsistency, this work aims to point on the major theoretical and practical dimensions of the issue at hand, focusing on the European region. The author will pay special attention to the procedural level of the individual’s position, embodied by the right of individual to access justice in the European Union. The author will question the capacity for action, which is the ability of individual to initiate proceeding of judicial and other relevant authority. Inevitably, the attention will be given to the interrelation between the ECtHR and the ECJ with regard to the status individual has before two major judicial bodies in Europe. The paper aims to offer significant scientific and social contribution to enlightening the controversies over the traditional understanding of the individual`s position in positive international law, and to offer a new approach, especially with the relation to the standing of the domestic and regional legal theory and practice, as well as the consequences such new approach entails. The author will use the following scientific methods in the project: comparative method, method of analysis and synthesis, historical legal method and sociological method.