| Abstract [eng] |
The paper is divided into three parts, analyzing the role of the national court in ensuring judicial protection vis-à-vis the institutions of the European Union and the effectiveness of this protection. The first part analyses the role of the national court in the legal system of the Union, as well as factual circumstances essential to an exercise of this role, such as the legal consciousness of national judges. The second part examines the role of the national court in the Union‘s judicial review system, the relationship between preliminary ruling on validity and action for annulment and the dynamics of these remedies, also the problem of competence to declare an Union legal act invalid. The third part identifies normative powers of the national court, as enshrined in the Treaties and in the case-law of the Court of Justice, to question the validity of the secondary Union law, and examines the exercise of those powers in practice. The results of the study confirm that the essential role of the national court in the legal system of the Union is also reflected in the process of judicial review, as the national court has a duty to ensure judicial protection vis-à-vis the institutions of the Union, and exercises broad powers recognised in the case-law of the Court of Justice. Thus, by interpreting Article 267 TFEU broadly in the light of constitutional principles of the Union, the Court of Justice has established a significant role for the national court. However, despite its normative potential, in practice national courts passively refer to the Court of Justice to ensure the legality of Union law, which is not due to a defective legal regulation or the case-law of the Court of Justice, but to factual circumstances at the level of the Member State outside the bounds of law, such as the lack of questioning of Union‘s secondary law by national judges. |
