Too Small to Claim, Too Big to Fail: Addressing the Stealth Dimension of the Rule of Law in the EU
Dominik Dworniczak is a lawyer and historian whose research covers European private law, consumer protection, financial law, contract law and legal history. He is currently completing his PhD thesis entitled ‘Ordering Legal Reality: A Comparative Study on Consumer Credit in European Judiciaries’ combining interdisciplinary approaches to consumer law and conducted at the European University Institute (EUI) under the supervision of Prof Mathias Siems. Dominik holds a law degree (magister) from the University of Wroclaw (Poland) and an LLM degree from the EUI (Florence, Italy), as well as a BA degree (licencjat) and an MA degree (magister) in history, both from the University of Wroclaw. At the EUI, he has been involved in research projects on Start-Up Corporate Law, Legal Transplants and twice on national implementations of the Temporary Protection Directive. At present, Dominik is also a collaborator at the Polish Academy of Sciences in the research project Justice, Fundamental Rights and Artificial Intelligence (JuLIA). His broader research interests include methodology of comparative law, access to justice in EU law and socio-legal approaches to EU law. Dominik is particularly interested in the impact of EU law and policy from a bottom-up perspective, primarily in litigation before national courts.
Too Small to Claim, Too Big to Fail: Addressing the Stealth Dimension of the Rule of Law in the EU
The research project focuses on the core part of the rule of law in the EU: access to justice. It is argued that its stealth dimension poses a serious challenge to realisation of rights under EU law, despite the guarantees from Art. 47 CFR. The practical realization of rights is complex and often hindered by structural barriers. The project aims to identify, analyze and address these barriers by focusing on the "stealth dimension" of access to justice. This dimension refers to all the claims that are perceived as insignificant but equally deserving a just substantial settlement, often going unaddressed due to various factors. These include not only the material and formal obstacles in access to justice, but also the structural problems leading to individuals’ alienation, just as mental distress, uncertain legal status and transnational complexities. The project centres around three paradigmatic areas: non-discrimination law, data protection law, and consumer law, where individuals, such as workers, data subjects, and consumers, face structural obstacles in access to justice. Ultimately, the research aims at contributing to a deeper understanding of access to justice within the EU and at offering practical recommendations for enhancing the effectiveness of remedies and upholding the rule of law.
