we know from cases such as Costa and enel the EU law is supreme but that information is actually pretty useless unless individuals like you or like the people who might appear in problem questions in your exams can actually enforce those rights within their own National court system and that's what we're going to be looking at today through the principle of direct effect so with this in mind let's get started so the first thing that we need to understand is that there are two types of direct effect vertical Direct effects which means going up and down and horizontal direct effect which sort of means going left and right so let's have a look at this in action just to make it a bit clearer so we have our individual at the bottom and she wants to enforce her rights under EU law now under vertical direct effect she can enforce her rights upwards against the state and I've put a picture of parliament there but actually the EU con concept of emanations of the state is much wider than this and can it can include things like local authorities government departments even right down to the level of local schools and so we'll return later to this concept of the state and but it's a relatively broad definition and so vertical direct effect can work in quite a broad fashion horizontal direct effect means sort of left and right so you're basically able to enforce your rights under EU law against people who are on the same level as you so our young lady here can enforce her rights against other individuals and she can also enforce her rights as well against companies because for the purposes of the law companies have a corporate legal personality and so almost count as individuals themselves so now that we understand vertical direct effect and horizontal direct effect we need to um sort of understand how this applies in relation to the different types of EU law that we have so we'll start with the most important one which is the treaties themselves and these are kind of like the primary legislation of the EU kind of working the same way as acts of parliament work here in the UK and so because they're so important they have horizontal and vertical direct effect and this was seen most clearly in the famous case of Van genden loose from 1963 and here it was said that the treaty article in question has to be clear and unconditional uh unconditional it has to be a Prohibition and it has to not be dependent on member State implementation so looking at the facts of Van gendan lose this looked at article 30 which is a Prohibition on customs duties that's clear it's unconditional it's clearly a Prohibition as well and it didn't require any member State implementation and so van gendin loose was was able to enforce their rights under EU law within the Dutch court system moving on regulations are relatively similar as well when regulations are passed by the EU they automatically become part of EU law but they also automatically become part of member state law as well and so because of this direct applicability regulations also have horizontal and vertical direct effect directives are a little bit more complicated so stick with me on this one directives basically require member states to actually do something within a certain time limit and this is often sort of passing their own laws on subjects such as gender equality or um the environment things like that and so because there is this requirement on the member states to do something they only have vertical direct effect because individuals should only be able to enforce the obligation on the member State itself furthermore the directives themselves in order to be enforceable by an individual have to actually give rights to those individuals such as in defren and Sabina number two and also the time limit that the member state has has to also have expired in other words it has to have gone beyond the time limit and then individuals can actually enforce their rights and that comes from the case of Ratty which was also in 1979 so in principle directives only have vertical Direct effects but what if I told you there was a cheat code which basically meant that directives could also have horizontal direct effect as well well let's have a look at this idea of indirect effect so we know that horizontal direct effect is where individuals or companies can sue each other and enforce their rights under EU law but because directives only have vertical direct effect that's not allowed within this particular context however if you actually think about one person suing another person in order to do that they have to go through the court system and you may remember remember at the start of the lecture I talked about how the state is given a very wide definition to include things like government departments and local authorities and it can also include the court system in other words when one person sues another person the court as an emanation of the state is obliged to abide by EU law and enforce it in the Judgment that it hands down between the two individuals in other words it's kind of a bit of a long and Securus route but it essentially creates the facility for horizontal direct effect between individuals so I know that's a little bit complicated but really all you need to know is the indirect effect allows directives to be horizontally effective and there's a couple of cases that you can look for this and the first main case was Von Coulson in 1984 and then a few years later this was also applied within the context of the UK in the case of liser and fourth Dry Dock in 1989 so the only thing that I really want to sort of finish off by saying is looking at this idea of the state and if you are answering a problem question this is normally a good way to pick up some marks because if an individual wants to uh have vertical direct effect and enforce their rights against the state then really you need to be able to sort of properly Define what the state is and as we've already said it's given a very broad definition to include things like um schools and the courts and local authorities but um we really need some idea about what the actual definition is and this comes from the case of Foster and British gas PLC in 1990 and basically says that any body that provides a public service which is under the control of the state to some extent and has special powers Beyond those of individuals can be considered an emanation of the state and therefore um be liable and have um EU rights enforced against them so even though British gas PLC in this context was considered as an employer they were still an emanation of the state so direct effect normally comes up as part of a problem question and in those circumstances you can normally start off with a nice definition before looking at the person who you're going to advise do they want to enforce their rights against another individual in which case we're going to be looking at horizontal direct effect or are they more likely going to be trying to enforce their rights against another body if that's the case then the first thing you need to do is consider whether that body is part of the state or not using the criteria that we looked at in Foster and British gas PLC if they're part of the state then we're looking at vertical direct effect if that body is not part of the state then it's essentially like suing a company under horiz onal direct effect once you've done that you're going to be looking at the type of EU law that's involved and so we discuss things like um the treaties like um regulations and also directives as well which can be a little bit complicated but that's a good way to pick up some marks if a directive direct effect question does come up in an exam well I hope you enjoyed this video if you do have any questions about direct effect um leave those in the comment section below and I'll try and get back to you otherwise um make sure to subscribe for more videos in the future and leave a like on this video because it really helps out the channel and I always appreciate it thanks very much for watching bye