European Commission’s consultation on access to justice
The European Commission has announced a targeted consultation for its 2023 report on the application of the EU Charter of fundamental rights. This year’s consultation will be dedicated to effective legal protection as a precondition for the full application of fundamental rights.
Effective legal protection is vital for the enforcement of the fundamental rights enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’). For these reasons, the Commission has decided to dedicate its 2023 annual Charter report to ‘Effective legal protection as a precondition for the application of fundamental rights’.
The report will describe the existing EU law of relevance to effective legal protection, and illustrate, in a factual manner and through concrete examples, actions taken by the Member States and the EU to implement it. The report will complement the Commission’s annual Rule of Law reports. While the Rule of Law reports focus on judicial independence, quality, and efficiency of national justice systems, the 2023 Charter report covers the broader concept of access to justice through judicial and non-judicial remedies. It aims to provide a fundamental rights perspective on access to justice, defined as the ability of everyone to seek and obtain a just resolution of legal problems through a range of legal and justice services, in a manner that complies with fundamental rights.
Your organisations’ work relating to judicial and non-judicial remedies is extremely relevant for ensuring that fundamental rights are effectively protected. Therefore, this questionnaire was prepared in order to gather the input of civil society organisations with regard to access to justice, paying specific attention to certain issues, such as removing barriers, positive and negative remedies, and facilitation.
To gather information for this report, the Commission is consulting relevant stakeholders. An organisations’ work relating to judicial and non-judicial remedies is extremely relevant for ensuring that fundamental rights are effectively protected. Therefore, this questionnaire was prepared in order to gather the input of civil society organisations with regard to access to justice, paying specific attention to certain issues, such as removing barriers, positive and negative remedies, and facilitation. As our network of organisations is doing important work in this area, we invite all of our members to submit a contribution.
HOW TO CONTRIBUTE?
You can contribute by sending a written contribution directly to the Commission (JUST-C2-CHARTE@ec.europa.eu), or by responding to a survey managed by the Fundamental Rights Agency, Consultation with civil society organisations on access to justice (europa.eu).
Please read the background note explaining what type of information the report is seeking to gather. You can also find the privacy statement in case any personal data would be submitted.
In order to be able to assess the contributions in time for preparing the report, the Commission kindly asks to submit contributions through the survey by 15 August 2023.
