| Abstract [eng] |
This Master’s thesis examines how judicial dialogue between national courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union operates in practice. The research focuses on selected “dialogue episodes” in which national courts use the preliminary reference procedure and subsequent national judgments to interact with the Court of Justice. The aim is to provide a clear and practical account of this interaction and to show how it can take cooperative or conflictual forms. The thesis uses a doctrinal, qualitative method based on case studies. First, it explains the legal framework of the preliminary reference procedure and the main doctrines shaping the duties and discretion of national courts. Second, it presents the main theoretical approaches to judicial dialogue and introduces three basic visions of the EU legal order supremacy through integration, constitutional pluralism and resistance. Third, it applies a simple analytical framework to detailed case studies and shorter vignettes drawn from several Member States, distinguishing cooperative episodes from conflictual ones and examining national follow-up to the Court of Justice’s rulings. The study shows that national courts use preliminary references selectively, especially in constitutional and politically sensitive cases. Cooperative episodes demonstrate that courts are willing to adjust legislation and even reinterpret constitutional standards when EU law is perceived as compatible with domestic values. Conflictual episodes reveal the use of ultra vires review, constitutional identity and interpretive limits to resist the effects of some judgments. Overall, the thesis concludes that judicial dialogue is an ambivalent but central mechanism for managing disagreement in the EU legal order, capable of both supporting and constraining integration. |
