and most particularly with concern for its own prerogatives as ultimate determinant of the EU legal order, rather than any abiding concern with human rights. Thus the old critique that the ECJ does not take rights seriously springs back to mind. As Leonard Besselink reminds us, we now know that we must take seriously the ECJ President’s announcement at the FIDE Conference 2014: ‘The Court is not a human rights court: it is the Supreme Court of the Union.’ Indeed, there is something highly ironic in the ruling, in that the ECJ appears to be opposing ECHR accession for fear this might result in a loss of its sovereignty – a position uncannily similar to that taken by UK eurosceptics, who desire ECHR membership only on their own terms.
This is indeed doubly ironic, for the Court expresses these concerns about its constitutional position and autonomy of EU law, just at a time when, with the expansion of EU criminal powers through the AFSJ, human rights control over the EU has never been needed more. The ECHR has an important role to play in underlining that the EU principles of mutual trust and recognition, although lynchpins of European integration, must not threaten fundamental rights and subvert the very values of the EU.