Joined Cases C-554/21,C-622/21 and C-727/21 Hann-Invest : From defending to building the rule of law

In Hann-Invest, the Court of Justice of the EU did not follow the opinion of AG Pikamäe and instead held that the standard of effective judicial protection under Article 19(1) TEU precludes the Croatian judicial mechanism for ensuring case law consistency. To reach this conclusion, the CJEU developed its existing standard of ‘judicial independence’ and ‘tribunal established by law’ standard to the power relations completely internal to the national judiciary. In doing so, it added another crucial building block to its ever-evolving Article 19(1) TEU jurisprudence. This case note engages with both the opinion of the AG and the judgment in Hann-Invest to show the relevance of this development. It explains how Hann-Invest adds to existing interwoven debates around the admissibility of Article 19(1) TEU references and the (overly) broad scope of this Article; how it successfully expands the existing rule of law standards under Article 19(1) TEU into the uncharted territory of internal judicial relations; and how the methodological approach relied on by the CJEU in this case is crucial for its further successful engagement with the variety of rule of law issues plaguing the Union, especially ones deeply rooted in the surviving authoritarian legal culture of post-socialist Member States.