The Court of Justice annuls a national measure directly to protect ECB independence: Rimšēvičs

Abstract

Rimšēvičs v Latvia is a highly unusual case: it is the first time that the special remedy created in Article 14.2 of the Statute of the European System of Central Banks and of the European Central Bank (ESCB/ECB Statute) has been put to use, with the result that the Court of Justice of the EU annulled a national measure directly. To clarify: the Court of Justice did not find that the Member State had merely infringed EU law, or adopted a particular interpretation of EU law that would not allow for a national measure like the one at stake. This is what the Court of Justice does within the infringement procedure and the preliminary ruling mechanism, respectively, and, in both cases, it relies on national courts or authorities to remove the national measure later on. In this case, however, the Court of Justice itself declared the national measure invalid.