The European Union likes to present itself as one of the main defenders of the rule of law. In Brussels, a principle is constantly recalled: European institutions are subject to law, not to power. However, in one more area more sensitive to European litigation – that of sanctions – this promise seems weakened. Not because judges would renounce their role, but because the system produces a singular result: it is possible to win in court while remaining sanctioned.
Too long delays which lead to a paradox
When an individual can obtain several favorable decisions without benefiting from any concrete effect, judicial review risks becoming more formal than effective. The first problem is deadlines. Proceedings before the European Union court typically last between 18 and 24 months, while sanctions are reviewed and renewed every six months. Result: when a judge annuls a measure, the contested act has often already expired and been replaced by a new text based on slightly modified motivation but producing the same effects.
This results in a paradoxical situation: the judge examines yesterday’s sanctions while those of today continue to apply. In theory, each new act constitutes a separate measure. In practice, the Council of the European Union can move the legal target before an effective remedy is obtained. The Dmitry Pumpyansky affair provides an illustration of this. Former co-owner of the Russian TMK grouphe left his functions and sold his holdings in March 2022. In June 2024, the Court annulled the sanctions which had been imposed on him between September 2022 and September 2023. But his reinscription on the sanctions list in March 2024 was not covered by this procedure. Despite his victory in Luxembourg, he therefore remained sanctioned on largely similar grounds.
In September 2025, the Court again annulled the sanctions targeting him, finding that the Council had not demonstrated that he could still be considered as a “influential business leader operating in Russia”. However, each time an act of sanction expired, the Council adopted a new one, maintaining the restrictions in force. The legal victories therefore had little effect in practice. His wife, Galina Pumpyanskaya, experienced the same situation: even after the sanctions against her were canceled, the more recent measures remained applicable. A question then arises: what legal protection does there really exist when a victory in court changes nothing? Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees an effective remedy, and not the simple obtaining of a favorable judgment on a measure that has already expired.
A ritual rather than a real control mechanism
The second problem is even more worrying: a legal victory does not automatically lead to removal from the sanctions list. Even when judges agree with a sanctioned person, their withdrawal remains at the discretion of the Council, that is to say of the very institution which imposed the measures and defended them before the courts. Many lawyers thus denounce a situation in which the same institution loses a trial, then corrects the weaknesses noted by the judges before resuming an almost identical decision in a new legal act.
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), an appeal court, also raises questions
The phenomenon is not isolated. Maya Tokareva, daughter of the head of the Russian company Transneft, won three separate proceedings while remaining sanctioned. Nikita Mazepin, son of the former majority shareholder of the Uralchem group, also had to obtain several favorable decisions before finally being removed from the list. From a certain point, judicial review risks becoming a ritual rather than a real mechanism of control. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), an appeal court, also raises questions. The problem is not only that it often agrees with the Council, but that the intensity of judicial control seems to diminish in the most politically sensitive cases.
First, the Court relies largely on the principle of“effectiveness of sanctions” without always examining whether the measures would actually exert significant pressure on Russia. Some critics describe this criterion as a “empty category” which nevertheless structures the entire legal reasoning. Next, the Court appears to have distanced itself from proportionality control, breaking with the more demanding approach adopted in the Kadi II judgment, which required a rigorous examination of evidence even in cases related to security.
Finally, the CJEU validated a broad interpretation of the criteria for inclusion on the sanctions lists. Under this approach, it is not necessary to demonstrate a direct link between a business leader and the Russian authorities : it is often enough that he carries out his activity in a sector generating income for Russia. The criterion of “influential business leader” has become particularly extensive and can only be contested by demonstrating its character “clearly inappropriate”a difficult threshold to reach.
Procedural solutions?
The risk is then to transform an individual measure into a form of responsibility based on membership in an economic category rather than on established behaviors. This development fuels concerns about a possible politicization of judicial review. Some commentators go so far as to describe the Court as simple “recording room”considering that it no longer fully plays its role as guarantor of fundamental rights in cases linked to sanctions against Russia. None of these findings, however, constitutes an argument against the sanctions themselves. The European Union is right to target those who actually support the Russian war effort in Ukraine. But the right to an effective remedy guaranteed by Article 47 loses much of its substance when winning in court changes nothing.
The solutions are essentially procedural. Appeals against sanctions should be processed through an expedited procedure so that decisions occur within the six-month renewal cycle. The Council should also be required to promptly review subsequent acts based on the same grounds when a registration is cancelled. Finally, evidence should be gathered before the adoption of sanctions and not after the opening of litigation. Europe’s authority does not rest only on its economic power or its diplomatic influence. It also depends on the conviction that its institutions are truly subject to the law.
This belief is weakened when one court demands proof, another accepts broader presumptions, and sanctions remain unchanged regardless of who wins the trial. The rule of law can only mean that the Council is only bound by a court decision until the adoption of the next sanctioning act. Likewise, judicial protection cannot be considered effective when an unfavorable decision can be neutralized by successive re-registrations. Delayed justice is a problem. Justice denied is a danger. But justice that changes nothing is perhaps even worse. When a judgment no longer modifies reality, Brussels should ask itself an uncomfortable question: is justice really being done or simply staged?
