Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Community law - Direct effect - Primacy - Proceedings brought before a national court in order to penalize an infringement of Community law attributable to a provision of national law - Infringement not yet established - Application for interim relief - Existence of a national rule prohibiting that application from being granted - Duties and powers of the court seised

( EEC Treaty, Arts 5 and 177 )

Summary

It is for the national courts, in application of the principle of cooperation laid down in Article 5 of the EEC Treaty, to ensure the legal protection which persons derive from the direct effect of provisions of Community law .

Any provision of a national legal system and any legislative, administrative or judicial practice which might impair the effectiveness of Community law by withholding from the national court having jurisdiction to apply such law the power to do everything necessary at the moment of its application to set aside national legislative provisions which might prevent, even temporarily, Community rules from having full force and effect are incompatible with the requirements inherent in the very nature of Community law .

The full effectiveness of Community law would be just as much impaired if a rule of national law could prevent a court seised of a dispute governed by Community law from granting interim relief in order to ensure the full effectiveness of the judgment to be given on the existence of the rights claimed under Community law . It follows that a court which in those circumstances would grant interim relief, if it were not for a rule of national law, is obliged to set aside that rule .

That interpretation is reinforced by the system established by Article 177 of the EEC Treaty whose effectiveness would be impaired if a national court, having stayed proceedings pending the reply by the Court of Justice to the question referred to it for a preliminary ruling, were not able to grant interim relief until it delivered its judgment following the reply given by the Court of Justice .