As far as the judicial system is concerned, the legal actions that can be brought before the Union courts, the Court of Justice, the General Court, and specialized courts, do not provide for a comprehensive system of procedural remedies. The main procedural remedy to address this problem is the preliminary ruling procedure, which enables all national courts, and obliges some of them, to suspend the main proceedings before it and refer questions concerning the interpretation and validity of Union law to (...) the Court of Justice for a binding ruling. According to Article 267(1) Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), the Court of Justice have jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning: the interpretation of the treaties and the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions, bodies, offices, or agencies of the Union. A decision of the Court of Justice is given in the form of a judgment. (shrink)

Whilst the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, which became part of binding primary EU law on 1 December 2009, constitutes an important codification and clarification of fundamental rights as they exist in the European Union, the field of application of the Charter is limited in a significant way: the Charter only applies when EU law is at stake. When national courts and authorities in the EU Member States are confronted with problems of purely national law, they are (...) not obliged to apply the Charter but should instead rely on the national constitutional Bill of Rights as well as the international human rights instruments which are binding on the Member State in question. The borderline between EU law and national law is not always easy to establish in a concrete case. This article discusses theoretical and practical problems arising out of the application and interpretation of Article 51(1) of the Charter, according to which the Charter is addressed to the Member States ‘only when they are implementing Union law’. It is suggested to adopt a pragmatic case-by-case approach, asking oneself if there is another norm of Union law than a Charter provision which is directly relevant to a case in concreto. If the answer is yes, also the Charter should be applied, supposing that there is a Charter provision which could influence the outcome of the case. If the answer is in the negative, national courts and authorities are only obliged to apply national law, including the constitutional Bill of Rights and the international human rights obligations of the Member State concerned. (shrink)