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This chapter examines the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. Topics discussed include the influential effect of the charter and the right to good administration expressed in Article 41 of the Charter. It is argued that even if the Charter does not formally become part of EU constitutional law, as long as the Constitutional Treaty is not ratified it plays an influential and significant role in the building of a European corpus of law protecting fundamental rights. The Charter is referred to in the preambles of texts of secondary legislation and used as a document of reference by the various EC/EU institutions. The Charter, although not binding, influences the case law of European courts.

The term ‘human rights’ has different meanings and is used in many academic subjects. It is used by lawyers and politicians, by philosophers and theologians, and, more generally, by the public. The term is used to denote a broad spectrum of very diverse rights, ranging from the right to life to the right to a cultural identity. They involve all elementary preconditions for an existence worthy of human dignity. These rights are ordered and specified in different ways. Often a distinction is made between civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other. Some also add collective rights as a third group. The first group is related to restricting the powers of the state in respect of the individual. The second group often requires governments to intervene actively to create good conditions for human development, such as employment, education, and healthcare. When we speak about the right to good governance we must distinguish between the right as such and the underlying norms which are part of the principles of good governance: properness, transparency, participation, effectiveness, and accountability. This means that the underlying norms of the right to good governance are also related to these five principles. The inclusion of human rights as one of these principles here is to make it more explicit that this is not only a subjective right for the citizens but also an obligation for the government. The right and the obligation are two sides of the same coin.

Chapter 6 shows how, in spite of the differences of the various domestic legal systems in Europe, a European model for public administration is emerging. This can be seen across different topics such as the scope of public action, the provision of services of general interest; but also in the way in which public administration is organized, in respect of matters such as, for example, economic governance, delegated management and public procurement, and independent authorities and agencies. The chapter sets out and analyses the principle of good administration and the role it plays in European public law, and then turns to the topic of the organization of the civil service in Europe, analysing the question both at the European and at the domestic level.

The rights to asylum and to protection against refoulement, as per Chapters 8-9, entail both substantive and procedural components. This chapter scrutinizes the remedies and procedural safeguards attached to them, paying particular attention to the most relevant international provisions of refugee law and human rights protection. Article 16 CSR51; Articles 14(1), 2(3) and 7 ICCPR; Article 3 CAT; as well as Articles 6 and 13 ECHR are all scrutinized with the purpose of determining the content of the right to effective judicial protection in Article 47 CFR. On the basis of the ‘cumulative standards’ approach, it is concluded that fair trial and effective remedy guarantees are applicable in the context of pre-border controls, including the right to a hearing in person and to an appeal ‘with automatic suspensive effect’. In light of this, it is argued that inherent in a claim to international protection or in a plea of non-refoulement is an entitlement to provisional admission to the territory of the intercepting Member State for the purpose of such procedures as may be necessary to guarantee the effectiveness of the rights that protection seekers derive from EU law.