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 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.
In Estonian consumer insolvency a credit claim already covered by a final judgment counts as uncontested — even where the reasons do not show that any court ever asked whether the lender assessed the borrower's ability to repay. The Riigikohus asks whether finality can carry a question that was never put.
An Estonian order for payment issues on a consumer credit claim without any court checking whether the lender ever assessed the borrower's ability to repay — and enforcement checks nothing either. The consumer has fifteen days to object, on papers that never mention the point. The Riigikohus asks whether that is enough.
The Return Directive defines return to a third country as one the person 'voluntarily decides to return' to. If that word governs the choice of destination, a State cannot send anyone to a safe third country they did not pick. The Dutch Council of State asks.
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.