Access to justice: a deconstructionist approach to horizontal direct effect

Access to justice of European Community (EC) law rights has been a concern of the Member States, the EC Commission, and individuals who have experienced the effect of denial of these rights due to inaction or misapplication by the particular State. This problem has been exacerbated with the continued abjuration of Horizontal Direct Effect of Directives (HDE), which has been exemplified in employment relations where the majority of EC laws are enacted in the form of Directives. This paper considers the issue of HDE and how it impacts on access to EC laws for workers. It investigates the practical problems experienced with the denial of this method of enforcing rights in conjunction with the dismantling of the previous arguments as to its denial. The paper concludes by establishing that HDE can be given effect if the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Member States have the desire, and how it would offer true access to justice for workers of their EC rights.