Sincere cooperation and the judiciary

This chapter focuses on the main instruments used by the domestic judges to ensure a sincere cooperation and thus a uniform application of EU law, namely the disapplication of national provisions conflicting with European provisions and the consistent interpretation. The use of these instruments may be preceded by a request for a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice. Owing to exigencies of space, this will not be dealt with in the present chapter; it is the instrument expressly provided by the Treaty to allow the national court to “know” the EU law relevant to the concrete case and to act accordingly in order to ensure a correct application and uniform interpretation of EU law. After an overview of the ECJ case law aiming at clarifying scope and content of the EU obligations upon national courts, the chapter will point out to limits of these obligations and on their increasing importance in a complex scenario; finally, it will show how national courts may play a fundamental role in solving many of the normative inconsistencies existing in the multilevel legal system.