Preliminary Ruling Procedure before the Court of Justice of The EU and its Implementation in Croatian Procedural Law

Prethodni postupak je glavni mehanizam predviđen Osnivačkim ugovorom (čl. 267. UFEU) koji služi u svrhu ujednačenog tumačenja i primjene europskog prava u svim državama članicama EU. Ovaj postupak ima svoje dvije faze. Prva se odvija pred nacionalnim sudom prilikom odluke o upućivanju prethodnog pitanja, a druga pred Europskim sudom pravde. Dok su pravila postupka pred Europskim sudom pravde definirana Ugovorom, Statutom Europskog suda pravde te Pravilima postupka, europsko pravo nema jedinstvena pravila o detaljima postupka pred nacionalnim sudom, kako prije tako i nakon upućivanja pitanja, pa se postupovna pravila država članica o postupku pred nacionalnim sudom razlikuju. Autori najprije analiziraju je li donošenje nacionalnog zakonodavstva kojim se implementira prethodni postupak uopće nužno i zaključuju kako neke države članice (npr. Njemačka) nemaju nikakvo implementacijsko zakonodavstvo, dok druge imaju manje ili više detaljno uređen prethodni postupak u nacionalnom procesnom pravu. RH je u predpristupnom razdoblju stvorila određeni procesni okvir. U radu se kritiziraju postojeća zakonska rješenja i predlažu neka bolja, alternativna i dopunska rješenja.Preliminary ruling procedure, that is provided by Art. 267. TFEU is the main tool in ensuring the uniformity in application of EU Law in all the Member States. This procedure has two phases. The first one before national court and the second one before the Court of Justice of the EU (ECJ). While the procedure before the ECJ is regulated by the Treaty, Statute and Rules of procedure, there is no any European regulation of national procedure in the course of preliminary ruling procedure. So, there are differences between member states. The authors are analyzing is it necessary to implement preliminary ruling procedure by national law. Some of the Member states (e.g. Germany) doesn’t have any national law, while the others have more or less detailed national rules. So, there are differences between member states. So far, Croatia already have procedural framework implementing preliminary ruling procedure, but until the Croatia joins the EU, Croatian judges do not have the possibility to refer the questions to the ECJ. So, the analysis will be mostly de lege ferenda. The aim of this paper is to give detailed and critical analyze of the implementation of preliminary ruling procedure in Croatia and to suggest some improvements to achieve that preliminary ruling procedure is functioning correctly and is effective as much as possible