The Charter has a limited scope of application in national contexts, so it is less used at national level. Still, Member States occasionally refer to it in the legislative process and it is sometimes also referred to in parliamentary debates. Its most prominent use is at the Court of Justice of the European Union, with ever more court decisions relying on the Charter. National courts also make references to the Charter but not always with much relevance for the outcome. Awareness of the Charter remains, nonetheless, limited. Member States’ relevant policies hardly focus on increasing knowledge about it amongst practitioners or the general population.
At the end of 2014, the Charter had been in force for over five years, with the strong upward trend of references to the Charter in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) continuing.
National courts frequently use the Charter in combination with other prominent human rights sources, such as national constitutional law or international law.
In only a very small proportion of the total decisions by national courts referring to the Charter is the CJEU asked for a preliminary ruling.
The role of the Charter in the national legislative process depends on the respective procedural rules in place.
The Charter was referred to in various 2014 fundamental rights policy documents at national level, but there appear to be hardly any Charter-specific policies aiming to strengthen knowledge and awareness of the Charter.
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