Rule of law, effective protection of rights and independence of the judicial system

This chapter focuses on the interpenetration that exists between the principle of judicial independence and that of the effective protection of rights, underlined by the ongoing rulings of both the CJEU and the ECtHR. Indeed, the renewed importance attributed to the guarantee of this principle has emerged today in the light of a series of internal events in some Member States characterized by marked interventions in the reform of their judicial systems. The effects of the newly introduced disciplines are such that they are resulting in what is now being called a real ‘crisis of the rule of law’ as a core value of the EU. So disruptive is the scope of these reforms as a backslide of the integration process that it is even being traced back to the political features of ‘illiberal democracies’ or forms of ‘democratic regression’.