Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Preliminary rulings — Jurisdiction of the Court — Limits — General or hypothetical questions — Determination by the Court as to whether it has jurisdiction — (Art. 234 EC)

2. Social policy — Men and women — Access to employment and working conditions — Equal treatment — Directive 76/207 — Principle of effective control by the courts — Whether possibility of bringing a claim for compensation against the State before the civil courts is adequate — (Council Directive 76/207, Art. 6)

Summary

1. The procedure provided for by Article 234 EC is an instrument of cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts, by means of which the Court provides the national courts with the points of interpretation of Community law which they need in order to decide the disputes before them. In the context of that cooperation, it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted by the national court concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is, in principle, bound to give a ruling.

However, in exceptional circumstances, the Court can examine the conditions in which the case was referred to it by the national court, in order to assess whether it has jurisdiction. The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of Community law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it. The spirit of cooperation which must prevail in the preliminary ruling procedure requires the national court to have regard to the function entrusted to the Court of Justice, which is to assist in the administration of justice in the Member States and not to deliver advisory opinions on general or hypothetical questions.

see paras 20-23

2. Article 6 of Directive 76/207 on the implementation of the principle of equal treatment for men and women as regards access to employment, vocational training and promotion, and working conditions, which enables all persons who consider themselves wronged by failure to apply to them the principle of equal treatment to pursue their claims by judicial process, does not specify the nature of the court to which the Member States must entrust that task. So long as persons who consider themselves wronged by failure to apply the principle of equal treatment to them are able to pursue their claims effectively before a competent court, the requirements of Article 6 are satisfied.

Consequently, the legislation of a Member State satisfies these requirements where it provides, through the general State liability provisions, for the possibility of bringing a general claim before the civil courts for compensation against the State with a view to obtaining compensation for harm suffered as a result of a decision found to be unlawful having regard to the principle of equal treatment for men and women, the application of which is subject to several levels of review of the facts and the law by those courts.

see paras 24, 26-28