European Court Decision on the Right to Effective Judicial Protection

“It is for the Member States to establish a system of legal remedies and procedures to ensure respect for the right to effective judicial protection” the Court emphasizes.
In its decision, in Case C-50/00 P, Unión de Pequeños Agricultores v Council of the EU, the following is also stated:
“The Treaty, by Articles 173 (now, after amendment, Article 230) and 184 (now Article 241 EC), on the one hand, and by Article 177 (now Article 241), on the other, has established a complete system of legal remedies and procedures designed to ensure judicial review of the legality of acts of the Community institutions, and has entrusted such review to the Community Courts. Under that system, where natural or legal persons cannot, by reason of the conditions for admissibility laid down in the fourth paragraph of Article 173 of the Treaty, directly challenge Community measures of general application, they are able, depending on the case, either indirectly to plead the invalidity of such acts before the Community Courts under Article 184 of the Treaty or to do so before the national courts and ask them, since they have no jurisdiction themselves to declare those measures invalid, to make a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling on validity”.