MANUAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: THE EU AND BRITAIN

2.8 Impact of the European Court of Justice

Cases come before the European Court of Justice (ECJ) by a variety of procedures, including:

Article 234 (formerly Article 177) of the Treaty. Where a question of interpretation of Community law arises in a case before a national court, that court may refer the matter to the ECJ, for a ruling. The proceedings will be halted until the ECJ’s ruling has been given, and the national court will then be bound in that particular case to apply the ruling delivered by the ECJ.
Article 226 (formerly Article 169.) The Commission may bring a defaulting Member State before the ECJ, eg where there has been a failure to implement a Directive.

The ECJ has developed a number of principles which have considerable influence on national law and policies and on how EC policies apply. These include:

The provisions of the Treaty, together with Regulations enacted thereunder, automatically form part of the national law of each Member State, in other words, they are ‘directly applicable’ (Costa v ENEL case 6/64)1. Furthermore, they take precedence over the national law so that no conflicting provisions, whether prior or subsequent to the Community rule, may be upheld by the national court (Amministrazione delle Finanze v Simmenthal case 106/77). The application of Directives, however, is not automatic, in the same sense, although they are capable of having direct effect in the Member State as explained below.

Article 10 (formerly Article 5) requires Member States to take all appropriate measures to give effect to their Treaty obligations. In Factortame no 2 case C–213/89 UK legislation on fishing vessels was challenged before the English court as being contrary to the Treaty. Pending resolution of the dispute an application was made to suspend the operation of the legislation. The House of Lords held that it had no power to do this but referred the question to the ECJ which held that a national court must set aside any rule of national law which prevents it granting interim relief of the kind sought. In other words, where an argument arises as to the interpretation or application of Community law, the national court is obliged in appropriate circumstances to suspend the operation of its national legislation, even though it has yet to be ruled invalid.