07-01-2025
The Good Lobby Profs is an initiative gathering 60+ academics coming from over 30 countries that constantly monitors the respect of the rule of law by holding the EU and national institutions and leaders accountable.
Since 2020, it has devised litigation strategies before national and EU Courts, lodged administrative complaints and published major research and advocacy reports and studies including the set up of the EU ethics body.
2024 has been a very productive year for The Good Lobby Profs and we’d like to take advantage of the start of this new year to take a look back at some of the progress we’ve made:
1. Cooperation with DRI
At the start of 2024, we worked with Democracy Reporting International (DRI) on the methodology underlying their annual report examining non/partial compliance with ECtHR and CJEU judgments. Several Good Lobby Profs also acted as country rapporteurs. The third edition of the report entitled Justice Delayed, Justice Denied: The Non-Implementation of European Courts Judgments and the Rule of Law was published in September 2024.
2. Support for the “Starlight” project
The Good Lobby and The Good Lobby Profs, together with 18 civil society organisations, co-signed a proposal for a new EU litigation strategy in respect of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights for the period 2024-2029 which was published in September 2024. Entitled “Unlocking the Potential of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights”, the strategy recommends inter alia the CJEU to facilitate the involvement of third parties in court proceedings.
3. EU litigation
Speaking of court proceedings, in his capacity of co-director of The Good Lobby Profs, Laurent Pech submitted an access to document request as regards the Commission’s decision to close Article 7(1) procedure in respect of Poland. In the absence of any decision within the prescribed deadlines, he lodged an annulment on 19 September 2024 (See pending Case T-485/24). He has since obtained the documents but the litigation is continuing as the Commission is refusing to pay for his legal costs on disingenuous grounds.
In other EU litigation news, we were disappointed but not surprised to see the EU General Court dismissing the annulment actions brought by MEDEL et al purely on legal standing grounds on 4 June 2024 (Joined Cases T-530/22 to T-533/22). We have since been busy helping with the appeal case (see pending Case C-555/24 P) against the order of the General Court. In this respect, we are pleased to let you know that on 7 November 2024, Eleanor Sharpston and Nicky Stoffel lodged the requests for leave to intervene on behalf of RECLAIM, The Good Lobby and Hay Derecho, in the appeal brought by MEDEL et al. Finally, for an analysis of the annulment action lodged by a professional association of Romanian prosecutors (see pending Case T-1126/23) and supported by The Good Lobby Profs see A. Marini, “The Fight for the Rule of Law Moves against its Main Guardian: the Commission”, EUinside, 14 March 2024.
4. ECHR litigation
As part of our collaboration with the CEU Democracy Institute Rule of Law Clinic, a few Good Lobby Profs helped with several TPIs in cases against Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania.
To give a recent example, Laurent Pech authored a TPI in the case brought by a Romanian judge, which is primarily about judges’ freedom of expression/duty to speak up in a rule of law backsliding context and more broadly, the limits of free speech social media as far as judges are concerned. The TPI (in French) was submitted on 17 October 2024. This case will be decided by the Grand Chamber this year.
5. Litigation guide
Another publication which may be of interest is the rule of law litigation guide aimed at judges and prosecutors (and their representative bodies), which was published on 24 October 2024 by CEELI and where Laurent Pech was a co-author.
6. First EU “shadow report”
In addition to the TPIs mentioned above, several Good Lobby Profs helped with the first independent rule of law assessment of the EU’s own rule of law performance. The ensuing report, modelled on the Commission’s annual rule of law report and entitled “Rule of Law beyond the EU Member States – Assessing the Union’s Performance”, was published on 28 October 2024.
For a short overview, please feel free to check J. Grogan and B. Grabowska-Moroz, “The Missing Chapter: The EU’s Own Adherence to Rule of Law Standards”, VerfBlog, 28 October 2024 and see D. Kochenov and L. Pech, Op-ed: “Rule of Law binds the European Union too. It is time to scrutinize Union’s actions accordingly”, EU law live, 28 October 2024.
7. New members
Last but not least, we were happy to welcome the following new members in 2024:
- Nika Bačić Selanec, Assistant Professor and Jean Monnet Module Leader (EU Constitutional Law and Methodology) at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb;
- Davor Petrić, Executive Editor of the Croatian Yearbook of European Law and Policy, Postdoctoral Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb;
- Raphael Oidtmann, PhD candidate at Goethe University Frankfurt, Adjunct Lecturer in International Law at the University of Mannheim, and Parliamentary and Legal Advisor at the State Parliament of Hesse.