(Some of) the fundamental rights granted by the Charter may be a source of obligations for private parties: AMS

The Grand Chamber judgment under discussion arose from a preliminary reference where the Court of Justice was explicitly requested to clarify whether a provision of the Charter – namely, Article 27 on the “Workers’ right to information and consultation within the undertaking” – may be invoked in order to set aside a conflicting national provision in a dispute between private parties. With its judgment, the Court of Justice provided much-awaited answers to some of the questions raised by a “jurisprudential trio” which had stimulated extensive discussion among scholars and within the Court itself ”– the Grand Chamber judgments in Mangold, Kücükdeveci, and Dominguez. At the same time, however, the new judgement does not seem to reverse the Court’s inclination towards judicial minimalism, if not even avoidance, when principled questions concerning the scope and effects of the Charter are at stake.