Facts
Ms Jones was an English consultant, who worked for a multinational firm in Madrid, signed a notarial act with the Bank Z in May 20th, 2007 for the loan of 200, 000 EUR. She secured it by mortgage on her apartment. Ms Jones had to reimburse the whole payment with 300 monthly payments due November 31st, 2036. She would have to pay an interest of 7% instead of 4% if she failed to pay any of the installments. Ms Jones fulfilled all requirements of the agreement from 2007 to 2015, but she stopped paying installments from January 2015, not a long after she lost her job. After expiration of time foreseen in the agreement, Bank Z started enforcement proceeding in front of local court to reclaim the total loan. Ms Jones objected …show more content…
Laws and Arguments applicable to Q1
In the discussion of both questions we should analyze both national and EU laws relative to this case. The reason why EU law is also applicable to it Van Gend en Loos1 case which in a way has expanded jurisdiction of European Court of Justice since it has established the principle of direct effect of the European Union law, meaning that after Van Gend en Loos, EU law can award legal and natural persons with the rights which should be recognized and enforced (if necessary), by courts of member states.
The EU law applicable to this question is article 3 of Council Directive 91/13/ECC. Clause 1 of mentioned article defines which contractual term should be regarded as unfair: “A contractual term
1ECJ, Van Gend en Loos, C-26/62, Judgement of 6 February …show more content…
It is true that more and more rights are provided to the consumers to ensure their effective judicial protection like article 47 of Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and article 169 of TFEU. But “these rights will be meaningless until appropriate procedural mechanisms to ensure effective enforcement are absent or insufficient”.4 To make mypoint clearer, we should look at article 6 of Council Directive 91/13/ECC, according to which unfair terms of the contract should “not be binding on the consumer”. However, without efficient procedural mechanisms having this particular consumer right does not change anything for Ms Jones because she does not have access to effective judicial protection since she cannot appeal decision of the