THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION. Reforming Europe in a time of war

THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION 62 istrates by unilateral imposition of other constitutional powers or bodies were contrary to the principle of judicial independence. In this judgment, by declaring the matter admissible the Court made an interpretation of Articles 19 TU and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, based on the premise that it falls to the national courts to provide effective legal protection in the areas covered by EU law, including respect for the values of Article 2 TEU, and that for this judicial protection to be effective, it is essential to preserve their independence, which means: “… that the body concerned exercises its judicial func- tions wholly autonomously, without being subject to any hierarchical constraint or subordinated to any other body and without taking orders or instructions from any source whatsoever (…) it is thus protected against external interventions or pressure liable to impair the independent judgment of its members and to influence their decisions” 27 . With this ground-breaking interpretation, it could be no surprise that, based on it, the Commission decided to open a fresh channel with regard to the protection of the rule of law against Poland through infringement proce- dures (Article 258 and 260 TFEU), alleging the failure by Poland to fulfil its obligations as far as respect for the values of Article 2 TEU were concerned, owing to changes in the law enacted on the judiciary that, by undermin- ing its independence, affected the obligations that rest with Poland by virtue of the Treaties. In a way, it was the bullet in the chamber, following the absence of progress 27  C-64/16, paragraph 44.An excellent analysis of this line from the Court of Justice can be found in Campos Sánchez-Bordona, Manuel: La protección de la independencia judicial en el Derecho de la Unión Europea. Revista de Derecho Comunitario Europeo 2020, nº 65, p. 11. Figure 4. How the european rule of law mechanism works