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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

The Court can issue interim measures in infringement cases, an essential tool for avoiding further damage. Current practice forbids the Court from issuing interim measures in preliminary rulings. Therefore, the length of proceedings is more important in preliminary ruling than in infringement cases.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

1️⃣ C-45/87 R, Commission v Ireland; 2️⃣ C-65/18 P(R)-R, Nexans v Commission; 3️⃣ C-320/03 R, Commission v Austria; 4️⃣ C-503/06 R, Commission v Italy; 5️⃣ C‑78/14 PR, Commission v ANKO AE.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

‼️ It would be unfair to judge the Court solely by the length of these cases, as this is the area where the Court acts decisively and swiftly using interim measures – within days if necessary. Some cases where interim measures were issued within three to six days:

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

💥 However, the fastest infringement case was decided within 129 days: C-333/04, Commission v Luxembourg. It was not the most complex case, as Luxembourg did not deny the delayed transposition of the ATEX 153 Directive on workers at risk of explosive atmospheres.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

But how fast are these cases? Court statistics show direct actions, including infringement cases as a subcategory, average over 21 months.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

🇪🇺 Infringement proceedings are the primary tool for ensuring that EU Member States comply with EU law. If a country violates Union law, the European Commission—or, rarely, another Member State—can initiate proceedings that may ultimately lead to the Court, which rules on the alleged infringement.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 01/08/2025

An infringement ruling in 129 days – How fast can the Court of Justice of the European Union be?

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Reposted by Dániel G. Szabó

Laurent Pech 🇺🇦 @profpech.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

University College Dublin has just been announced as the host of the next round of the world's biggest event in public law! The 2026 @icon-s.bsky.social conference will be hosted in Belfield in July 2026 by the UCD Centre for Constitutional Studies led by Prof Carolan & @ucdschooloflaw.bsky.social

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

💡 What can we learn from this? The European Parliament elections are vital to EU democratic legitimacy, and the CJEU should be the ultimate guardian of the election process. To do so, it requires a special procedure to resolve election cases within days, if necessary.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

... "However, these processes often have lengthy deadlines, which do not allow for the resolution of disputes during the electoral process."

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

..."There are also review mechanisms at the EU level: a national court can decide to initiate the preliminary reference procedure with the CJEU when an issue of EU law or compatibility of national law with EU law is raised in a domestic case by one of the parties"....

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

The @odihr.pl election monitoring report for the 2024 European Parliament elections writes: ...

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

These timelines are extremely short, but elections require this. Virtually all national jurisdictions have special judicial procedures for elections. The Venice Commission recommends a timeframe of "a little more" than three to five days.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

3 days, April 3-6, 2020: Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 589 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 1205 (2020); 3: August 10-13, 2020: Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Common Cause R.I., 591 U.S. ___, 141 S. Ct. 206 (2020); 6: October 22-28, 2020: Wise v. Circosta, 592 U.S. ___, 141 S. Ct. 46 (2020).

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

This highly significant decision was made within 𝟒 days: the recount was ordered on 8 December, against which the SCOTUS granted a stay the next day. The case was argued on 11 December and decided a day later. There are even more SCOTUS cases decided this fast:

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

🇺🇸 The 2000 US presidential election was tight and controversial (by the time's standards). The presidency was at stake in the Florida recount, which was stopped by a Supreme Court order. This decision effectively awarded Florida's 25 Electoral College votes to George W. Bush, ensuring his victory.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

🏃 If needed, the SCOTUS can decide within days, and the CJEU should adopt a similar emergency procedure. 🗳️ In some cases, for example, during elections, one can not wait for months.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 31/07/2025

A court ruling within days? Examples from the US Supreme Court, and the @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

📈 Data source: the IUROPA Database, a project coordinated by Daniel Naurin, Johan Lindholm, Urška Šadl and Anna Wallerman Ghavanini. It is a comprehensive, research-ready source of CJEU judgments from 1952 until 2023: www.iuropa.pol.gu.se/cjeu-databas....

iuropa.pol.gu.se

The IUROPA Project

The IUROPA CJEU Database is the most complete collection of research-ready data about the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and European Union (EU) law.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

‼️ What does it mean? Finding a balance between acting quickly and conducting a thorough review is not easy. But despite its immense translation duties, the Court can find ways to issue judgments rapidly when needed.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

There are other cases in which the Court delivered a judgment within 70-80 days outside the urgent procedure: Melki and Abdeli (C-188/10), Wightman and Others (C-621/18), Jippes and Others (C-189/01), and others.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

🚄 The fastest-ever preliminary ruling was issued in only 40 days—surprisingly swiftly—in the Santesteban Goicoechea (C-296/08 PPU) case, which concerned the extradition of a detained person from 🇫🇷 France to 🇪🇸 Spain. In 20121, the Court answered the Adil case (C‑278/12 PPU) in 41 days.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

⚖️ A preliminary ruling—a primary procedure in EU law in which a national court can ask a question to the top EU court—lasted an average of 17.2 months in 2024. That is almost one and a half years! In urgent cases, the average is 3.3 months, which is still a quarter of a year.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

Litigants often complain about the slowness of the Court, but sometimes, it can be exceptionally fast.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/07/2025

🏃‍♂️ A preliminary ruling in 40 days – Have you ever wondered how fast the @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social can be? Here are some numbers.

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Reposted by Dániel G. Szabó

Hungarian Helsinki Committee @hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social · 05/06/2025

Postponing the final vote on the bill is not a retreat but merely a tactical delay. Protests by civic actors, media and businesses helped secure this temporary relief. The next months will be crucial to safeguard freedom of expression, association and assembly. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

theguardian.com

Hungary postpones vote on law to curb foreign-funded organisations

Orbán’s ruling party delays vote on legislation allowing government to ban organisations with foreign funding

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

What to do? 1️⃣ National courts should send election-related questions to the CJEU. 2️⃣ The CJEU should be fast in answering these questions, to meet the necessities of an election procedure. 3️⃣ The European Commission should launch infringement procedures to protect EP elections.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

EP elections are key to EU democratic legitimacy. Even if elections are flawed in only one country, close votes in the EP can be called into question.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

At the ICON-S CEE conference at Eötvös Loránd University, I argued for the @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social to strengthen its supervision of @europarl.europa.eu elections. Why?

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Hungarian Helsinki Committee @hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social · 23/05/2025

We joined @liberties.eu's open letter to @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu, warning of the severe and existential threat to democratic principles, human rights and the rule of law in Hungary and in the EU as a whole. Already 320+ orgs from all over Europe have joined the call on the Commission to act fast.

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Katalin Halmai @eublogo.bsky.social · 20/05/2025

Some Fidesz MPs have already hinted which media outlets could be subject to the so-called transparency law, which at the end could lead to their closure. If the Orbán government dares to use this instrument, the independent media will have to show unprecedented solidarity with those under attack ✊

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Reposted by Dániel G. Szabó

Hungarian Helsinki Committee @hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social · 16/05/2025

Here is our own, unofficial translation of the Starve & Strangle bill: helsinki.hu/en/wp-conten...

helsinki.hu

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

@hungarianhelsinki.bsky.social calls on the the @ec.europa.eu to seek interim measure against new Hungarian law targeting civil society, media and others.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Mayor Karácsony's announcement: www.facebook.com/watch/?v=947...

facebook.com

Redirecting...

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Mayor Karácsony argues that the law violates EU values enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, besides the free movement of capital, goods, and services.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

⚖️ A key issue with the law is the lack of effective judicial control. Several of the measures would occur without access to courts, and judicial review would be severely restricted in other cases.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

Such orders can be issued extremely fast (even within days) and prevent the enforcement of measures violating EU law. Failure to respect such orders can result in excessive monetary fines.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

He is on his way to Brussels to notify the European Commission of the drastic measures foreseen by the law: prohibiting any funding from abroad, including EU funds and any donation or grant from other Member States. The law would also remove organisations from an important tax donation scheme.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 15/05/2025

🇭🇺 🇪🇺 Budapest Mayor Gergely Karácsony asks Commission President @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu to request an interim measure against a new legislative proposal that targets media, civil society, and others.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

@politico.eu: "The bill says threats to national sovereignty include influencing public opinion, promoting democratic debate, or challenging state-defined values like Christian culture and traditional family roles."

politico.eu

Orbán’s Fidesz party proposes Russia-style crackdown on Hungary’s civil society

The new bill fits into a pattern of democratic backsliding for the Central European country.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

Read more from @eublogo.bsky.social: bsky.app/profile/eubl...

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

The law aims to silence independent media and rights protection organisations. It has the potential to do the same to anyone who can cause the slightest discomfort to the governing majority.

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Dániel G. Szabó @gszd.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

‼️ The proposal, tabled last night by a Fidesz MP, would crack down on anyone receiving funds from abroad, including from EU countries. The law would give powers to designate anyone commenting on public affairs as an "organisation influencing public life through foreign funding."

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Reposted by Dániel G. Szabó

Katalin Halmai @eublogo.bsky.social · 14/05/2025

‼️A Fidesz bill has been tabled at midnight that would make it extremely difficult for organisations receiving foreign funding to operate and exist in Hungary @telexhu.bsky.social reports. 🧵

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Jacob Öberg @profjacob.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

🚨🚨Major ruling expected this week from the General Court of @eucourtofjustice.bsky.social on #Pfizergate- a ruling which may have lasting implications for @ec.europa.eu president @vonderleyen.ec.europa.eu's legacy. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/von-...

politico.eu

Von der Leyen faces critical test as EU court decides on secret ‘Pfizergate’ texts

Wednesday’s General Court ruling will assess whether the European Commission is in breach of transparency rules.

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