“Effective Remedies and Procedural Autonomy- Judicial Review of Actions by the European Public Prosecutor (C-292/23, EPPO v I.R.O and F.J.L.R.)

The op-ed contains an analysis of the recent seminal ruling by Court of Justice of the European Union on the scope and nature of judicial review of procedural decisions of the European Public Prosecutor's Office (EPPO). In the ruling the CJEU noted that the concept of ‘procedural acts of the EPPO that are intended to produce legal effects vis-à-vis third parties’ is an autonomous concept of EU law which must be given an independent and uniform interpretation throughout the Union. Following the Court's case law on standing in Article 263 TFEU the CJEU opined that the EU legislature did not intend to restrict the mandatory judicial review of procedural acts of the EPPO to certain specific categories of procedural acts, but to extend the scope of that review to cover all acts of a procedural nature intended to produce binding legal effects capable of affecting the interests of third parties.