Die Freizügigkeit der Urteile und der Grundsatz des gegenseitigen Vertrauens im Europäischen Zivilverfahrensrecht im Spannungsverhältnis zu Art 6 EMRK/Art 47 GRC

This thesis addresses the issue of how free movement of judgements and the principle of mutual trust can be dogmatically pigeonholed into the system of European Union law in general, and into the (sub)-system of European civil procedural law in particular. It also addresses their interrelationship, as well as their relationship with the European Union’s system governing the protection of fundamental rights. This demonstrates that the free movement of judgements is based less on a further basic freedom in terms of the EU Single Market concept, and more on a General Principle of Law in the form of the principle of mutual recognition (country-of-origin principle). This is closely linked to the member state’s mutual trust in the justice system and judicature organisations of the other member state regularly invoked by the European Court of Justice since its judgement in the Gasser case (C-116/02). A detailed analysis of the constant practices of the European Court of Justice shows that this too involves a General Principle of Law. The Lisbon Treaty, which has just recently taken effect, further backs this assumption. After examining the European Union’s system governing the protection of fundamental rights, the thesis will analyse the extent to which the fundamental rights and general principles of law based on the EU’s primary legislation can impact on the secondary legislation of European civil procedural law. In the event of a conflict, the question as to how the conflict of relations is to be resolved is thus raised as principles of equal normative importance. In doing so, Alexy’s rule/principles model is applied on the one hand, and expanded with aspects of flexible systematic thinking on the other in order to develop a concept which consistently ensures the system’s coherence.