The Canaries in the Coal Mine: The Rule of Law and Mutual Trust

The erosion of values in the European Union has multiple consequences. It threatens the very essence of Europe as a community of values. At the same time, it also undermines legal principles such as mutual recognition of judicial decisions based on mutual trust, which is based on the presumption that all Member States ensure the protection of the rule of law and fundamental freedoms. Once this trust is broken, the judicial authorities of the Member States will begin to refuse to cooperate and mutually recognize judgments, so as not to become complicit in the violation of individual rights and not to violate the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. This paper argues that EU law must allow such developments and allow for the suspension of the presumption of mutual trust not only in individual cases, as is currently the case today, but in general when it comes to Member States where the rule of law system has collapsed, in order to support the culture of protection of EU fundamental rights and the equivalence of EU law with the human rights regime of the said Convention.