The Europeanization of Remedies and Procedures - The Principle of Effective Judicial Protection in the Swedish Judicial Habitat

The Europeanization of Remedies and Procedures -
The Principle of Effective Judicial Protection
in the Swedish Judicial Habitat

Johanna Engström

Faculty of Law, European University Institute

This article discusses the Europeanization of national remedies through the judge-made principle of effective judicial protection. It will look at the European re­quire­ments on national remedies and procedures to understand what is actually re­quired from the national judges. It will appear that the legal uncertainty pertaining to the understanding of EU law’s requirements on remedies and procedures makes it dif­ficult for national courts to provide effective judicial protection and, therefore, clari­­fications to the Court of Justice’s case-law would be welcome. As the princi­ple, however, rests on the empowerment of national judges, one must empirically ana­lyze how it unfolds in the national legal habitat to form an opinion on the Euro­pe­­ani­zation of remedies and procedures in practice. In this article, the Swedish courts’ reaction to and application of the principle of an effective judicial protec­tion will be analyzed. It will appear that the Swedish courts have experienced prob­lems in taking on the role that the principle confers on them. It will be sug­gested that this can be explained by Swedish legal and judicial culture, and the ar­ticle thus il­lustrates how the “mind-set of judges” can play a role in the Europeani­zation process.