Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Community law ° Direct effect ° Individual rights ° Protection by national courts and tribunals ° Legal proceedings ° Detailed national procedural rules ° Conditions of application ° National rules preventing the preliminary ruling procedure from being followed ° Precluded ° National rules preventing the national court or tribunal from considering of its own motion a plea of breach of Community law not raised within a certain period by a litigant ° Application precluded in the instant case

(EEC Treaty, Arts 5 and 177)

Summary

Pursuant to the principle of cooperation laid down in Article 5 of the Treaty, it is for the courts and tribunals of the Member States to ensure the legal protection which individuals derive from the direct effect of Community law. In the absence of Community rules governing a matter, it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to designate the courts and tribunals having jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding rights which individuals derive from the direct effect of Community law. However, such rules must not be less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions nor render virtually impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law. A rule of national law preventing the procedure laid down in Article 177 of the Treaty from being followed must, in this regard, be set aside.

Each case which raises the question whether a national procedural provision renders application of Community law impossible or excessively difficult must be analysed by reference to the role of that provision in the procedure, its progress and its special features, viewed as a whole, before the various national instances. In the light of that analysis the basic principles of the domestic judicial system, such as protection of the rights of the defence, the principle of legal certainty and the proper conduct of procedure, must, where appropriate, be taken into consideration.

In that regard, whilst the imposition on litigants of a period of sixty days to submit a new plea based on Community law is not objectionable per se, Community law precludes application of a domestic procedural rule whose effect is to prevent the national court or tribunal, seised of a matter falling within its jurisdiction, from considering of its own motion whether a measure of domestic law is compatible with a provision of Community law when the latter provision has not been invoked by the litigant within a certain period, in a case where: the national court hearing the main proceedings is the first court which may refer a preliminary question to the Court of Justice; the limitation period in question has expired by the time that that court holds its hearing so that it is denied the possibility of considering of its own motion the question of compatibility; it seems that no other court or tribunal in subsequent proceedings may of its motion consider the question of the compatibility of a national measure with Community law; and the impossibility for the national courts or tribunals to raise points of Community law of their own motion does not appear to be reasonably justifiable by principles such as the requirement of legal certainty or the proper conduct of procedure.