A prominent French lawyer, Valérie Hanoun of the Paris Bar, has warned that the European Union’s sanctions review system has reached a point where targeted individuals can repeatedly win in court yet remain under sanctions, raising fundamental doubts about whether judicial oversight in such cases still provides meaningful protection.
In an opinion piece published by the influential French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, Ms Hanoun contends that the EU, which presents itself as the world’s foremost defender of the rule of law, has built a sanctions process that produces a “peculiar result”: people prevail before the courts but obtain no practical relief. When that happens repeatedly, the argument runs, judicial review becomes “formal rather than effective.”
The critique strikes at a politically sensitive area. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the EU has imposed restrictive measures on thousands of individuals and entities, and many of those targets have challenged their listings in Luxembourg. The lawyer stresses that the broad point is “not an argument against sanctions themselves,” and that the EU “is right to target those who genuinely sustain Russia’s war against Ukraine.” The concern is procedural: whether an annulment actually changes anything.
A “shell game” of timing
The first problem the opinion identifies is structural delay. Cases before the General Court of the European Union typically take 18 to 24 months to resolve. Sanctions, by contrast, are reviewed and renewed every six months. The mismatch, Ms Hanoun argues, creates a “procedural absurdity”: by the time the court annuls a measure, that measure has often already expired and been replaced by a new one, usually with slightly revised reasoning but the same practical effect.
The opinion describes this as a “legal shell game” in which the court reviews yesterday’s sanctions while today’s continue to apply, and “the rules of the game shift while the referee is still deliberating.” Because each new sanctions act is formally a separate legal measure, the lawyer says, the Council of the European Union can effectively move the legal target before the court delivers an effective remedy.
The case of Dmitry Pumpyansky, former co-owner of Russia’s largest pipe manufacturer, TMK, is offered as the clearest illustration. Pumpyansky resigned from his corporate positions and sold his shares in March 2022. In June 2024 the General Court annulled the sanctions imposed on him for an earlier period, but a relisting from March 2024 was not examined in that case for procedural reasons, so he remained sanctioned on essentially the grounds the court had just rejected. In September 2025 the court annulled the measures again, finding that the Council had failed to justify treating him as a “leading businessperson operating in Russia.” Each time one act expired, the opinion notes, the Council adopted another, preserving the restrictions.
His wife, Galina Pumpyanskaya, faced the same dynamic: even after annulments in her favour, the rulings applied only to expired acts while newer measures stayed in force.
“The same institution that imposed the sanctions”
The second problem Ms Hanoun raises is “even more troubling”: court victories do not automatically lead to delisting. Removal from a sanctions list remains at the discretion of the Council, the same body that imposed the measures and defended them in court. The opinion calls this an “obvious conflict of interest,” summarising how lawyers increasingly describe it: the institution “takes notes during hearings and later rewrites those notes into new sanctions decisions.” Rather than reconsidering the substance of a listing, the Council can correct the specific weaknesses a court identified and reproduce much the same decision in a fresh act.
The opinion cites Maya Tokareva, daughter of the head of Russian pipeline operator Transneft, who reportedly won three separate cases yet remained sanctioned, and Nikita Mazepin, son of the former majority shareholder of fertiliser producer Uralchem, who needed several rulings before being removed. When an individual must win repeatedly before a first judgment produces any practical result, the lawyer argues, “judicial oversight risks becoming ritual rather than control.”
Concerns about the appeal court
The opinion reserves separate criticism for the EU’s top court, the Court of Justice of the European Union, which it accuses of being reluctant to subject Council decisions to meaningful scrutiny in the most politically sensitive cases. It argues the court leans heavily on the principle of “sanctions effectiveness” without examining whether measures actually pressure Russia, has stepped back from proportionality review, and has endorsed an expansive reading of listing criteria that does not require proof of a direct link between a businessperson and the Russian authorities. That, Ms Hanoun warns, risks “liability by economic category.” Some commentators, the opinion notes, have gone as far as calling the court a “rubber stamp.”
A solution “within Brussels’ reach”
The opinion frames the fix as procedural and achievable. Sanctions challenges should be fast-tracked so that judgments arrive within the six-month renewal cycle, using expedited procedures the court already has but rarely deploys. Once a listing is annulled, the Council should be required to promptly review later acts based on the same reasoning and either properly justify or withdraw them. Above all, Ms Hanoun argues, evidence should be gathered before sanctions are imposed, not after litigation begins.
Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights guarantees an effective remedy, the opinion notes, a right that becomes “largely symbolic when success in court changes nothing.” Its closing question is pointed: when a ruling no longer changes reality, is justice “being done here, or merely performed?”
