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 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.
A financial supervisor obtains a court order to inspect. Does that order hand it the exclusive power to decide what data it takes, or must the scope be fixed in advance by the subject matter of the inspection? A Lithuanian administrative court asks.
A consumer credit agreement is declared wholly invalid, but the money was drawn down and the lender wants it back. From which date does limitation run on that claim — the finding of invalidity, the drawdown, or each instalment of the contract that no longer exists? Sofia City Court asks.
A Chrome extension from one Spanish legal database injects instructions into the pages of another, halts browsing and offers to carry the reader across to its own content. The Tribunal Supremo asks whether that is 'alteration' of a computer program — a question that would move the fight from unfair competition into copyright.
Bulgaria's national health system holds every diagnosis, prescription and operation a person has had, and opens the whole file to doctors, insurers and prosecutors with no technical limit on what they read. Six questions from the Supreme Administrative Court ask whether Article 9 GDPR permits any of it.
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.