Directory of EU Case Law on the Preliminary Ruling Procedure

Article 234 EC ensures that a divergent application of the EC Treaty or
of the statutes and acts of its institutions is not allowed in any Member
State. Unsurprisingly, its pivotal importance has given rise to a huge number
of ECJ judgments and orders - about 700 by the beginning of 2009. Very often,
a practitioner needs to establish whether the preliminary ruling procedure
called for by Article 234 EC is required in a particular case being pursued in
a national court, and any relevant ECJ ruling or order must be located. Herein
lies the great value of this book.

Dr Barents' very useful volume sorts paragraphs of the 700 judgments
and orders by subject, making it easy to establish the relevance of a
particular Community court ruling to a particular national court proceeding.
In this book paragraphs of the judgments and orders are presented in the form
of extracts sorted by subject. The subject headings are arranged according to
a hierarchical system, descending from such overarching concepts as scope and
participation to such precise categories as the following:

;

-
situations outside the scope of community law

-
bodies not considered to be courts or tribunals

-
arbitration

-
third persons

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rights of participants

-
formulation of preliminary questions

-
presumption of relevance of a preliminary reference

-
violation of the obligation to refer

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requirement of a pending dispute

-
interim measures

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modification of preliminary questions

-
questions rejected by the submitting court

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new elements presented during the preliminary procedure

-
questions lacking precision

-
retroactive effects of judgments

Paragraphs of judgments relating to more than one subject are included under
each relevant heading, where necessary accompanied by cross references to
other headings. Under each extract or summary, the judgments and orders are
referred to by case number in ascending order. The articles of the EC Treaty
are cited according to the new method of citation pursuant to the renumbering
of the articles of that treaty brought about by the Treaty of Amsterdam.

There is no doubt that the book's technique of presenting case law in the form
of separate extracts and summaries arranged by topic and sub-topic improves
the accessibility of the material. This very practical, time-saving feature
will be greatly appreciated by practitioners throughout Europe. This is a
reference every European lawyer will want to have on hand.