Firstly, since the s there has been continual development of a system of fundamental rights protection based on the general principles taken from Member State Constitutions. Thirdly, there is a system of fundamental rights protection based on the European Convention on Human Rights.
This directly affects the Member States and indirectly the EU system as a whole. However, as we all know, it has not been accepted yet, therefore, we cannot make a complaint to the Court of Human Rights against the EU because it is not a signatory to the Convention. When it comes to how our fundamental rights are protected under the Charter and Convention we see the overlap between the two treaties. Furthermore, these have been interpreted and expanded by the Court of Human Rights.
The EU, for example, has developed fundamental rights into legislation showing some of the differences between the institutions. For example, Article 10 of the Convention protects our right to have our own opinions and to express them freely without government interference, Public protest, Freedom of the press and the same rights are mirrored under article 11 of the Charter.
Article 8 of the Charter sets out the right to the protection of personal data, but the EU carries this further with, a whole range of specific protection such as the GDPR. The Convention expresses this differently, where the Court on Human Rights has emphasised that Article 8 includes private and family life, home, and correspondence including mail, telephone communications and e-mails in the workplace.
However, because the Convention also applies to legal entities, their rights are protected too. Having said this, there is an established concern about the standard of protection given at supranational level as well as the concern if and how the CJEU should allow Member States to apply their own, national, standard of rights protection as different from the EU standard when a situation falls within the scope of EU law remains controversial. The case highlighted the difficult nature of rights protection in the EU.
