CYIL vol. 10 (2019)

CYIL 10 ȍ2019Ȏ DISTANCE BETWEEN EU LAW … that of the Constitutional Court – given the fact that both bodies enforce the jurisprudence of the ECtHR.” 94 Per C) as for the substantive constitutional reasoning regarding the use of the Charter by the petitioners, the first issue is that there are no official statistics due to the absence of filtering tools enabling the HCC to assess all petitions under this standard, and thus measure the number of Charter-references in incoming petitions. Since this was a given, the following key examples have been collected through desk research. As we will see, the references are usually very broad, with no exact reasoning or indications of the law. This is problematic, as due to the currently effective legal framework, the HCC is bound to the content of the petitions in how far it can go in its proceedings. A few illustrative examples follow. In most of the cases found through desk research (here focusing only on the past 5 years), the ineffective use of Charter arguments by petitioners (and their legal counsel) led to the declaration of refusal. In 3179/2017. (VII. 14.) AB végzés (refusal order), in a gambling case involving slot machines, the petitioner (an economic operator) referred to Article 17 of the Charter, arguing that the violation of the right to property through the challenged law within the national competence “disregards the provisions of the Charter and the Fundamental Law.” 95 While the inadequacy of the Charter reference (a mere mention of the document) was not the only reason for refusal, it certainly demonstrates a key problem: the lack of substance and quality when it comes to awareness of the essence of the Charter and its implications for protecting fundamental rights paired with a general lack of information about admissibility thresholds in HCC constitutional complaints procedures. In a case based on similar facts and Charter references, under 3090/2017. (IV. 28.) AB végzés, the Court reiterates that the petitioner (again an economic operator) – based on the same ‘substantive argument’ – “has referred to the fact that according to the CJEU violation of the right to property is substantiated by any regulation within the national competence, which disregards the relevant, effective provisions of the Charter and the Fundamental Law applicable to the situation.” 96 In a petition challenging a judicial decision in a foreign currency loan case, the HCC refused the constitutional complaint under 3272/2016. (XII. 20.) AB végzés as the petition, again, only contained a mere mention of the violation of Article 47 of the Charter regarding the fair trial, without any further constitutional argumentation pointing out the exact nature of the violation and the relevance of the Charter argument. In 3143/2016 (VI. 29.) AB végzés, the refusal order – due to non-compliance with the formal and material requirements of admissibility in HCC procedure – was issued in a case involving a grievance fee for personality rights infringement and equal treatment issues, in which the Charter appeared as a point of reference by merely mentioning Article 1 (dignity) in the petition. In three 2015 cases 97 regarding the challenging of unlawful termination of public service and public administration employment relationships, the complaints were refused due to 94 e.g. 3200/2018 (VI. 21.) AB végzés, concurring opinion, [15]. 95 3179/2017. (VII. 14.) AB végzés, Justification [5]. 96 3090/2017. (IV. 28.) AB végzés, Justification [31]. 97 3164/2015. (VII. 24.) AB végzés, 3019/2015. (I. 27.) AB végzés, 3020/2015. (I. 27.) AB végzés. MEASURING THE ‘EU’CLIDEAN

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