Some Explorations into the EPPO’s Administrative Structure and Judicial Review

The Commission proposal for an EPPO purports to establish an intricate structure of multilevel administration of justice in that it seeks to centralise and at the same time decentralise the novel prosecutorial function for the EU. Fragmentation of the substantive and procedural provisions in various legal instruments among divergent national systems is bound to give rise to shortcomings in the appropriate protection of citizen’s rights. Legitimation derived from the role of national courts is profoundly ambiguous, to the extent that the obvious risks of forum competition and output incoherencies are generally recognised. The EU courts provide the effective remedy required by the principle of the rule of law, an individual is entitled to as against acts of EU bodies. The mere reference in Article 86 TFEU to the possibility to adopt rules applicable to judicial review, does not imply a power to set aside the entire Treaty system of judicial protection. The effort to restrict the preliminary jurisdiction of the ECJ introduces an arbitrariness which does not correspond to prevailing perceptions of the EU legal order as based on the rule of law. The unprecedented system of judicial protection in national courts as against acts of a single, integrated EU body raises questions of consistency in the light of the general pattern of coherent judicial protection in the refined multilevel court system of the EU.