[Xylakant]

“And the EU acts as judge, jury and executioner.”

That’s true only if you regard he EU as a single entity. Laws made via the EU will be turned into national law, and independent judges will judge all cases, up to the EU high court. By the same right you could call the US judge, jury and executioner on all laws and rules made and enforced by the US government (FACTA anyone?)

[peoplewindow]

No. That's not how the EU works. That's how a national government would work but not the EU.

The GDPR is not a directive so it does not have to be translated into national law. It is directly binding and applies immediately everywhere.

Fines have to be paid up front, before appeals are exhausted. Appeals can of course take years.

The EU courts have judges appointed by the same people who control the rest of the EU, and are ideologically aligned as such. They have a long history of legislating from the bench and making shocking and nonsensical decisions: consider the case where they simply voided the UK's opt out of new human rights related legislation, despite a very clear paragraph in the treaties saying they did not apply to the UK. The court simply decided it didn't like that bit of the treaty and so it did not apply. I do not regard the ECJ as a robust court. It will rule in whatever way is most favourable to the European project.

[pjc50]

No, the enforcement is through the national "supervisory authorities" such as the ICO. Most of the enforcement process is through national courts and the ECJ is only for the final layer of appeal. This very article says "German Court rules ..."

> voided the UK's opt out of new human rights related legislation, despite a very clear paragraph in the treaties saying they did not apply to the UK.

[citation needed]; did you read this in the UK press?

[peoplewindow]

See here: https://fullfact.org/europe/eu-and-human-rights/

In the section "Wasn’t the UK supposed to get an opt-out from EU human rights laws?"

The summary is, when the Treaty of Lisbon awarded the EU new human rights powers the UK and Poland negotiated an opt out which was written in the treaty. It was a part of convincing the UK government to accept the new treaty without granting a referendum on it, as they had previously promised.

The opt out is very clear, really as clear as lawyers can make such things. It says:

The charter does not extend the ability of the CJEU, or any court or tribunal of… the United Kingdom, to find that the laws, regulations or administrative provisions, practices or action of… the United Kingdom are inconsistent with the fundamental rights, freedoms and principles that it reaffirms

and

In particular, and for the avoidance of doubt, nothing in Title IV of the Charter creates justiciable rights applicable to Poland or the United Kingdom except in so far as Poland or the United Kingdom has provided for such rights in its national law

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2...

In other words, this part of the treaty does not allow the courts to overturn UK laws. Stated twice, for clarity.

A few years later the ECJ decided that the opt out was meaningless and voided it, under a new interpretation that they claimed meant they'd actually always had these powers, and therefore the treaty did not "extend" them, and so the opt out didn't "work" despite its apparently clear wording. They then began overturning UK laws.

It's unclear why the treaty had anything new in it at all if the courts had always had these powers of course, but this is how things go in the EU - no matter how plainly something seems to be written, no matter how clear the assurances seem to be at the time, the moment it becomes politically inconvenient to the project the rules are tossed out under bizarre and kafkaesque re-interpretations.

Same thing happened to Ireland with corporation tax. They were promised the EU wouldn't interfere with their tax policies. Then the EU decided low taxes were "state aid" and awarded itself the power to control Irish tax policy. Nobody had previously interpreted the state aid clauses that way.

[stordoff]

It's a decision that makes perfect sense if you read the preamble to the Charter (my emphasis):

> This Charter reaffirms [...] the rights as they result, in particular, from [various pre-existing sources].

The opt-out specifies that the Charter does not _extend_ the ability of the courts, but does not limit the powers that the ECJ already had prior to the implementation of the Charter. Even if the UK had a cast-iron opt-out (e.g. "The Charter, in its entirety, is not applicable to the UK, no rights are granted under it to UK citizens, and no court may refer to it in reaching a decision affecting the UK"), more or less the same results would likely be reached.

Also note Article 51(2): "The Charter does not extend the field of application of Union law beyond the powers of the Union or establish any new power or task for the Union, or modify powers and tasks as defined in the Treaties.". This is broadly similar to the UK/Polish opt-out, further suggesting that the Charter did not grant powers that the UK had not otherwise agreed to.

> In other words, this part of the treaty does not allow the courts to overturn UK laws. Stated twice, for clarity.

It does not grant them _new_ abilities to do so, and the second statement only refers to a subset of the rights considered under the Charter.

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/ALL/?uri=CELEX:120...

[doikor]

> They were promised the EU wouldn't interfere with their tax policies

EU promised not to meddle as long as preferential treatment wasn't given. As in if Ireland gave the exact same tax deal to every company in Ireland then it would have been fine.

(the no preferential treatment in taxation bit is part of getting access to the single market)

[madez]

The reason d'être of the EU is to unite, so I expect eventually all opt-outs to end or to become meaningless. Countries joining the project should have that in mind, and I think they all have and had, even if they're not talking too much about it.

[erfgh]

The text is indeed very clear and it clearly says the opposite of what you are suggesting here.

[dahauns]

>consider the case where they simply voided the UK's opt out of new human rights related legislation

Erm...you are aware that this case has nothing to do with the ECJ, but with the ECHR, which isn't even an institution of the EU, but of the Council of Europe* , which is an entity completely separate from (and older than) the EU.

* not to be confused with the European Council or the Council of the European Union. Yeah, it's a bit silly.

[stordoff]

The decision OP refers to is a ECJ decision on the Charter of Fundamental Rights (NS v Home Secretary), not an ECtHR decision.

[dahauns]

My apologies, I was indeed wrong.

[disgruntledphd2]

I think that this source suggests that this idea may have been a mis-representation by Michael Gove [0] during the course of a referendum (I was interested, as I wasn't aware of any such decision).

Then again, all's fair in love, war and referendums :)

[0] https://infacts.org/mythbusts/ecj-isnt-using-charter-fundame...

To be fair, the Google front page was split between two sides, which suggests that this may be an issue with some emotional salience.