Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Convention on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments ° Interpretation by the Court ° Interpretation sought in regard to legal proceedings to be determined by the application of national legislation merely modelled on the Convention and not requiring the national court to apply the interpretation given by the Court ° Lack of jurisdiction of the Court

(Convention of 27 September 1968; Protocol of 3 June 1971)

Summary

The function of the Court, as envisaged by the Protocol of 3 June 1971 on the interpretation by the Court of Justice of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on jurisdiction and the enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters, is that of a court whose judgments are binding on the national court. That function would be altered if the replies given by the Court to the courts of the Contracting States were permitted to be purely advisory and without binding effect.

However, that would be the case if the Court were to declare that it had jurisdiction to provide interpretation of the Convention requested of it by a national court before which proceedings are pending and to which not the Convention but national legislation is applicable, where that legislation takes the Convention as a model, by reproducing certain of its provisions but without incorporating them as such into the domestic legal order, and expressly providing for the possibility of adopting modifications in order to produce divergence in relation to Convention provisions as interpreted by the Courts, and where that legislation merely requires national courts in applying the Convention provisions to have regard to the Court' s interpretation of the corresponding provisions of the Convention without giving binding effect to that interpretation.

For that reason the Court does not have jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling on a question arising in such a context.