EUR-Lex Access to European Union law
This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Case-law
In this section, you can find case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, including:
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Judgments and orders on:
- cases brought by EU institutions, EU Member States, corporate bodies or individuals against an act or failure to act of an EU institution, body, office or agency
- cases brought against EU Member States for failing to fulfil their obligations under the EU treaties
- national courts' requests for preliminary rulings on the validity or interpretation of EU law
- disputes between the EU and its staff.
- Opinions and views of Advocates General
- Opinions of the Court of Justice on draft agreements between the EU and non-EU countries or international organisations.
You will find these documents accompanied by a rich legal analysis and links to related information (e.g. legislation affected or interpreted by a judicial decision, instruments cited in case-law etc.). In most cases, summaries of decisions and references to related academic articles are also available.
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The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is the EU’s judicial body. It ensures that EU law is uniformly interpreted and applied through its 2 courts: the Court of Justice and the General Court.
The Court of Justice is mainly responsible for:
- References for preliminary rulings on the interpretation or validity of EU law (Article 267 TFEU)
- Actions against EU Member States for failing to fulfil their obligations, brought by the Commission or another EU Member State (infringement proceedings) (Article 258 TFEU and Article 259 TFEU)
- Actions for annulment (Article 263 TFEU), brought by EU Member States or EU institutions and other EU bodies, to annul acts by the European Parliament, the European Council or the Council with the exception of actions related to Council decisions on State aid, dumping and implementing powers
- Actions against the European Parliament, the European Council or the Council for failing to act (Article 265 TFEU), brought by EU Member States, EU institutions or other EU bodies, with the exception of actions related to Council decisions on State aid, dumping and implementing powers
- Appeals on a point of law against decisions by the General Court (Article 256 TFEU).
The General Court is mainly responsible at first instance for:
- Actions for annulment (Article 263 TFEU) and actions for failure to act (Article 265 TFEU) by EU institutions and other EU bodies brought by individuals and actions related to Council decisions on to State aid, dumping and implementing powers and actions brought by EU Member States against the Commission
- Applications for compensation of damages caused by the EU, based on non-contractual liability (Article 268 TFEU)
- Actions related to disputes between the EU and its staff (Article 270 TFEU)
- Actions based on an arbitration clause contained in contracts concluded by or on behalf of the EU (Article 272 TFEU)
- Actions related to intellectual property, brought against the European Union Intellectual Property Office and against the Community Plant Variety Office.
Specialised courts
The European Parliament and the Council can create specialised courts (Article 257 TFEU) by using the ordinary legislative procedure. These courts can rule at first instance in certain matters.
The only specialised court to have been created so far is the European Civil Service Tribunal. Established in 2005 to deal with cases between the EU and its civil service, the court was dissolved in 2016 and its competences transferred back to the General Court.
How to search in this section?
The left-hand side of this page gives access to several search tools.
- Reports of Cases gives access to a search directly in the official reports by the jurisdictions of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
- The Directory of case-law contains all the documents of this section organised in 9 main domains and several subdomains.
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Search in case-law redirects to an advanced search form that offers many options. Searches will be performed only within the remit of the “Case-law” section.
On the top of the search form, you have the option to: (i) limit your search to documents published in Court Reports; (ii) include or not case-law summaries in search results.
- The Recently published search gives access to all the documents published in this section in the last 14 days.
You can also search using 4 basic criteria: