Abstract
The Article contributes to the scholarly debate on cross-court variations in referral rates by exploring the role of the judicial hierarchy on the propensity of national judges to refer legal questions to the Court of Justice. The focus of this Article lies in exploring the relationship between the first and the second instance court judges and the question of how these two groups of judges perceive their role in the preliminary ruling. The Article places the study of judicial behaviour with respect to the preliminary ruling procedure on more rigorous theoretical grounds. Building on the team model of adjudication and based on mixed-method research design, it argues that lawfinding specialisation, a more beneficial workload v. resources ratio and the fact that preliminary questions can only address points of law give the second instance courts judges more reasons to engage with Art. 267 TFEU proceedings as compared to their first instance counterparts.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 799-823 |
| Number of pages | 25 |
| Journal | European Papers- A Journal on Law and Integration |
| Volume | 5 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2020 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
*Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, [email protected]. The Author acknowledges financial support from ERC Starting Grant 638154 (EUTHORITY). This Article was written during doctoral research at Centre for Legal Theory and Empirical Jurisprudence, Faculty of Law, KU Leuven.Publisher Copyright: © 2020. All Rights Reserved.