BOSPHORUS HAVA YOLLARI TURİZM VE TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ v. IRELAND JUDGMENT – JOINT CONCURRING OPINION 51 and the interest of the applicant company. By its nature, such a review of proportionality can only be carried out in concreto. In the instant case, the judgment adopts a general approach based on the concept of presumption: “If such [comparable] equivalent protection [of fundamental rights] is considered to be provided by the organisation, the presumption will be that a State has not departed from the requirements of the Convention when it does no more than implement legal obligations flowing from its membership of the organisation. However, any such presumption can be rebutted if, in the circumstances of a particular case, it is considered that the protection of Convention rights was manifestly deficient” (see paragraph 156). 3. Even supposing that such “equivalent protection” exists – a finding which, moreover, as the judgment correctly observes, could not be final and would be susceptible to review in the light of any relevant change in fundamental rights protection (see paragraph 155) – we are not entirely convinced by the approach that was adopted in order to establish that such protection existed in the instant case. The majority engages in a general abstract review of the Community system (see paragraphs 159-64 of the judgment) – a review to which all the Contracting Parties to the European Convention on Human Rights could in a way lay claim – and concludes that the protection of fundamental rights by Community law can be considered to be “equivalent” to that of the Convention system, thereby enabling the concept of presumption to be brought into play (see paragraph 165). Needless to say, we do not wish to question that finding. We are fully convinced of the growing role of fundamental rights and their far-reaching integration into the Community system, and of the major changes in the case-law taking place in this field. However, it remains the case that the Union has not yet acceded to the European Convention on Human Rights and that full protection does not yet exist at European level. Moreover, as the judgment rightly emphasises, “the effectiveness of such substantive guarantees of fundamental rights depends on the mechanisms of control in place to ensure observance of such rights” (see paragraph 160). From this procedural perspective, the judgment minimises or ignores certain factors which establish a genuine difference and make it unreasonable to conclude that “equivalent protection” exists in every case. On the one hand, we have a reference for a preliminary ruling to the European Court of Justice, made not by the applicant company but by the Supreme Court of Ireland. Such a reference does not constitute an appeal but a request for interpretation (Article 234 of the EC Treaty). Although the interpretation of Community law given by the European Court of Justice is binding on the court which made the referral, the latter retains full discretion in deciding how to apply that ruling in concreto when resolving the dispute before it. Equally, in its general review of “equivalent protection”, the