Charikleia Vlachou held a seminar on the judicial review of ACER decisions
On 14 October, Charikleia Vlachou, Lecturer in Energy Law at the University of Cyprus, held a seminar for the research group on the judicial review of ACER decisions.
Main content
Seminar topic
The topic of the seminar was the judicial review of decisions by the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER). More specifically, the issue was the extent to which the two-tier system with ACER's Board of Appeal as the first appellate body and the European Court of Justice as the second appellate body ensures effective judicial review.
A limited review of a limited review?
This issue is particularly interesting because ACER, as an EU agency, is given limited jurisdiction聽by the Member States, and mainly issues guidelines that are not legally binding ("soft law"). Consequently, the European Court of Justice cannot fully review most of ACER's decisions, cf. Article 263 TFEU,聽only assess the validity of such acts when it gives a preliminary ruling, cf. Article 267 TFEU.
Chara's research asks whether聽ACER's Board of Appeal聽is subject to the same聽limited judicial聽review of ACER's decisions as the European Court of Justice, or if聽the Board can carry out a full judicial review. If it is limited to only complex technical and economic assessments, as case law indicates, then this means that the European Court of Justice聽as the second appellate body only performs a "limited review of a limited review".
Complex question
In that case, the two-tier system聽ensures neither effective judicial review nor sufficient legal remedies聽for those affected by ACER's decisions. One can therefore聽argue聽against the Board only carrying out a limited judicial review.
The topic is complex, and provided the basis for a good and interesting discussion in the research group. We thank Chara for sharing her exciting research with us.
