The ECJ’s Precedents as Means of EU Integration: National Courts’ Treatment of European Case-Law under Scrutiny

This article investigates how national judges treat the case-law of the European Court of Justice in their run-of-the-mill adjudication outside the preliminary reference mechanism. It shows that the ECJ formally instructs all national judges to follow its previous rulings and as a result, the Luxembourg’s jurisprudence theoretically enjoys precedential force in the wider sense. Nevertheless, it is argued that in reality, there is a great variety of patterns in how national judges apply and engage with the Court’s previous case-law. In order to examine those patterns, the study surpasses traditional indicators of compliance and instead embraces a broader concept of judicial treatment of previous case-law. Consequently, a three-level methodological framework for empirical analysis of the domestic referring practices consisting of a mix of quantitative and qualitative approaches is introduced. It is argued that combining automated text analysis with more traditional legal research methods offers a rather holistic approach which could contribute to the reconstruction of a more realistic and systematic picture of EU judicial choice-making. That framework is then applied to the pilot study of the Czech Supreme Administrative Court.