| Summary: | Recent events in the Member States of the EU have shown that the common values of the Union, inter alia the rule of law, might not be guaranteed across the Union as once hoped for. Scholars speak of a “rule of law crisis” while the Parliament and the Commission have activated Article 7 TEU, the so called “nuclear option”, regarding the situation in two of the Union’s 27 Member States, namely Poland and Hungary. When defending the recent reforms of its judiciary, in which the primary target has been the judicial independence of the national courts, Poland uses the Member States’ procedural autonomy as an argument regarding the CJEU’s, alleged, lack of jurisdiction. However, the CJEU does not agree, and recent case law shows how it has established jurisdiction over the Member States’ organization of the judiciary. This thesis examines the content of the principle of procedural autonomy as well as its limitations. It finds that the principle of the procedural autonomy entails that the Member States have the power to organise their judiciary as they wish, but only in the absence of EU rules, which have increased in numbers in recent years. It also finds that the principle is limited by several EU regulations and principles. With these findings as a base, recent case law of the CJEU, regarding judicial independence, is presented and analysed in order to examine what it can tell about the CJEU’s view on the Member States procedural autonomy, especially regarding judicial independence. This thesis finds the CJEU’s view to be that the procedural autonomy of the Member States is limited regarding the organization of the national judiciary since Member States have to ensure that judicial independence is guaranteed regarding courts that reside “within the fields covered by EU law”. The CJEU limits the procedural autonomy further by requiring that Member States have sufficient rules to guarantee this independence. Since the CJEU argues that a national court resides “within in the fields covered by EU law” as soon as the national court might have to judge in a case regarding the application or interpretation of EU law and since the national law of the Member States nowadays consist to a vast amount of EU law this thesis argues that the obligation for Member States to ensure judicial independence, practically, covers all its national courts.
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