Foreword by Former Advocate General Sharpston

• Author: Eleanor Sharpston
• Profession: Advocate General, Court of Justice of the EU (2006-2020)
• Pages: 8-9

— 8 —

Foreword

Eleanor Sharpston,

Former Advocate General

of the Court of Justice of the European Union

Initially, busy lawyers perhaps did not take that much notice of the Charter of



Parliament, the Council and the Commission on 7 December 2000, it was published

        1     

             

strengthen the protection of fundamental rights in the light of changes in society, social

making those rights more visible

in a Charter’ (my emphasis). The Charter made its parentage clear: it was a modern

            

and international obligations common to the Member States, the Treaty on European

Union, the Community Treaties, the European Convention for the Protection of Human

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, the Social Charters adopted by the Community and

by the Council of Europe and the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European

  

       

               

excited about’.

But then the Treaty of Lisbon changed the Charter’s legal status, elevating it from



Since that change became effective in 2009, the Charter has transformed the way we

think about EU law. It has given us an up-to-date yardstick of fundamental rights that is

internal to the EU legal order. It requires the EU legislature to ensure that new legislation



it. When deciding between the various possible interpretations of an ambiguous text

that are being urged upon it, the Court will naturally bear in mind relevant provisions

of the Charter and do its best to ensure that the interpretation that it endorses in its



Until now, however, we have been remarkably short on background material to enable

us to understand how the Charter came into being, the choices that were made (in terms

both of selection and of actual drafting) and the discussions and thinking behind the

 

– at its own instigation and prior to the actual adoption of the Charter – prepared

              



no legal value and are intended simply to clarify the provisions of the Charter’.2

1 OJ 2000 C 364, p.1.

2 Published by the Praesidium as document CHARTE 4473/00 CONVENT 49 of 11 October 2000 and

available at https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/convent49_en.htm. The European Parliament gives its own

                

FOREWORD BY FORMER ADVOCATE GENERAL SHARPSTON