The Snowden Aftermath; CJEU declares surveillance laws invalid for fundamental rights violation – the effects of the decision on Member States

Raven Butcher
LLM student at King’s College London specialising in International Business Law

EU law affects, or has the power to affect, Member States’ (MS) national laws. Where the Directives are clear, coherent and accepted by MS, the legal order can be viewed in systematic terms. Where they are less so, however, they become more contingent and fragile. The conveyance of these laws across states is not homogeneous and varies in light of identifiable factors. For example, transnational legal processes, processes through which transnational norms are conveyed, challenge national legal contexts and often conflict with domestic laws. States may block, adopt, translate or appropriate transnational law, and spur its reassessment. A prime example of this are the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) which are handed down to EU Member States, directly influencing their national legislation and in turn, moulding the relationship between them and their citizens. This article evaluates the extent to which EU law affects national legal systems by analysing the specific example of the Data Retention Directive (2006/24/EC) and its impact on Member States with particular focus on the UK.

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