Monitoring References to the Court of Justice of the European Union
Preliminary references are EU law's early-warning system: every reference is a dispute a national judge could not resolve alone. EU Law Radar reports them as they are lodged — the questions quoted verbatim — and follows each case through to judgment.
A European arrest warrant says it was issued for one offence, then ticks two boxes on the list of offences exempt from double criminality and adds a third offence of its own. A Maltese magistrates' court asks whether such a warrant is valid, what the speciality rule protects the person from, and whether it must ask for the warrant to be corrected.
After a dawn raid at Red Bull's premises, the Commission carried on examining the copied data in Brussels for seven weeks. Nexans says it must then reimburse the 'additional costs' that continuation causes. The Commission paid the travel and hotels but not the lawyers; the General Court agreed. Red Bull appeals on what 'additional' means.
A Sofia court sentencing a drug offender must deduct time spent on remand — but that remand was served in conditions significantly worse than the law allows. It asks whether Article 49 of the Charter requires harsher days to count for more, and whether any surplus can be banked against a future sentence.
Brussels I bis gives employees their own jurisdiction rules, which cannot be contracted out of. The Bundesarbeitsgericht asks whether a claim pleaded purely in tort escapes them when the wrong was done inside an employment relationship — or whether the relationship, not the label, decides where the case is heard.
A Sofia hospital trains a doctor to specialist level and binds them to five more years, on pain of repaying every training cost plus two months' salary. The Sofiyski rayonen sad asks whether that is a restriction on free movement, an unfair consumer term, or an element of coercion under Article 5 of the Charter.
The Court has twice told Bulgaria that mandatory minimum lawyers' fees set by the bar offend Article 101 TFEU. Bulgaria then moved the appointment of court-appointed representatives, and the setting of their fees, to the bar councils. A Blagoevgrad court asks in twenty-five questions whether that is the same restriction in new clothes.
Four years after the Court struck down public access to beneficial ownership registers, the replacement directive lets Member States shield an owner in 'exceptional circumstances to be laid down in national law'. Luxembourg defined those circumstances as the very risk that already triggers the shield. The Tribunal d'arrondissement asks what is left of the condition.
A parent withheld information about who the father of their child is. Sweden asks whether the EU law principle against fraud allows a derived right of residence under Article 20 TFEU to be refused — a right that exists for the child's sake, not the parent's.
Sweden will not grant a derived right of residence under Article 20 TFEU unless the applicant's identity is established. But the right exists to stop a Union citizen child being forced out of the EU, and the child's dependency does not depend on paperwork. The Migration Court of Appeal asks.
Bulgarian prosecutors want voice samples from a suspect and propose to get them by compelling answers to harmless questions, on pain of a fine or criminal consequences. Sofia City Court asks whether the right not to incriminate oneself permits it — and the answer turns on a list in a recital.
The questions referred are quoted word-for-word from the official texts. Commentary is clearly separated from the record.
Each report links the authentic documents on CURIA and EUR-Lex by ECLI and CELEX number.
URLs cited in academic literature since 2012 do not change. Corrections are logged, never silently overwritten.