Direct effect is often treated as settled doctrine, but recent Charter case law has reshaped its horizontal boundary. This article revisits direct effect through the Court of Justice’s approach to vertical and horizontal disputes, focusing on Article 47 of the Charter and Article 19(1) TEU. It argues that the post 2018 line marks a calibrated shift from directive centred enforcement to Charter centred adjudication. The Court still denies horizontal direct effect to directives, yet it has required disapplication of national law in private disputes when EU law applies and the Charter norm is sufficient in itself. Egenberger, Bauer/Willmeroth, Max Planck and K.L. v X illustrate the pattern. MG (Energotehnica) extends it to procedural autonomy and rejects disciplinary chilling effects. The article proposes guardrails based on scope, sufficiency and remedial necessity. It then compares this model with Türkiye’s Article 90(5) practice and EU–Türkiye association.