Together with a team of researchers, we have been reading and coding all (!) references for a preliminary ruling that have been submitted by Czech national courts to the European Court of Justice since the Czech accession to the EU in 2004. By 1 May 2024, that will be 20 years of judicial dialogue and about 130 cases in total. In this paper we will present our findings and conclusions. Which courts ask and which do not - and is there an explanation for that? How common is it for national judges to express their legal opinion already in the reference - and how influential is it in relation to the Court's reasoning? What are the national judges' motivations for the references (conflicting national legislation, conflicting national jurisprudence, genuine question on interpretation)? And how do national courts deal with the answers from Luxembourg? We hope to finalise this article in the spring, present it at this workshop in June, implement any comments and recommendations and then send it to a relevant journal. Thank you in advance for considering our application!
