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EU law folks, why isn't more being made of the dismissal of AG Eleanor Sharpston @akulith from the CJEU? The CJEU's reasoning for rejecting her request for interim measures is technically dubious and, more importantly, contradicts the idea of a Union based on the rule of law.1/
The decision that appointed a new AG (and, seemingly implicitly, dismissed her) did not come from "bodies, offices or agencies of the Union" but from the governments of the Member States. This would then make it fall outside the reach of judicial review pursuant to TFEU 263. 2/
But the dismissal appears to contradict frontally the text of the TEU, which provides clearly that AGs and Judges are appointed "for a term of six years". It does not say "or until governments decide otherwise". 3/
Indeed, the first order issued on the matter, by Judge Collins, rightly recognized the systemic implications of permitting the dismissal of an AG by implication and suspended the operation of the decision pending judgment. 4/ In full: https://www.brickcourt.co.uk/images/uploads/documents/Interim_Measures_Order_4_Sep_2020.pdf
The order was reversed by CJEU Vice-President Silva de Lapuerta, on grounds that, "prima facie", "the main action has no prospect of success", even though the same decision acknowledges that it may indeed be successful. 5/ https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/eu-court-rules-against-british-qc
The precedent invoked - a decision taken within the Council but not by the Council to grant aid to Bangladesh - seems to be entirely inapposite. Under Article 253, the governments are exercising a competence granted to them by the Treaties, not just cooperating voluntarily. 6/
This should make the governments' act very much "acts of bodies, offices or agencies of the Union intended to produce legal effects vis-Ă -vis third parties". This allows any person to challenge an "an act ... which is of direct and individual concern to them". 7/
More broadly, if the representatives of governments can appoint replacements to sitting AGs, and thereby implicitly dismiss AGs mid-term, they can also replace in-office CJEU Judges mid-term without more. How is this compatible with a Union committed to the Rule of Law? 8/8 
