The rise and decline of fundamental rights protection in European Union citizenship case law

This thesis examines the case law of the Court of Justice of the EU throughout the development of the concept of EU citizenship. It does so in relation to the discourse on EU fundamental rights, and argues that there has been a correlation between the two concepts since the beginning, driving much of the development in citizenship until this day. Five judicial instruments have been used by the Court in the decision-making process that emerged out of the development: these are the principles of non-discrimination, proportionality, the genuine link test, the purely internal situations rule and the deprivation of genuine enjoyment test. This thesis examines each instrument as they pertain to the case law by looking at three different "ages" of citizenship, which are demarcated by significant changes in the Court's constitutional landscape. The claim at the outset is that there is an inherent relationship between EU fundamental rights and EU citizenship as they both seek to achieve the same objective - the protection of the individual. The thesis argues that although this claim was borne out early in the history of EU citizenship, the current case law indicates that the original claim should be now treated with caution. The Court enters increasingly sensitive territory as regards protection of citizenship rights vis-à-vis fundamental rights. For this reason, there has been notable decline in the protection of fundamental rights in the citizenship case law. It is argued that this is attributable to the Euroscepticism that has worsened since the Eurozone crisis. The legal culture of the Court is such that it is influenced by politics of the time, and its decisions on citizenship and fundamental rights are no exception. The effect is that the Court now interprets the EU fundamental rights and Union citizenship relationship in a less liberal way than was initially expected and this shift is likely to persist until the EU is no longer in crisis.