The purpose behind setting out the provisions of Article 234 (which was formerly Article 177) are set out in the case of Bosh v De Geus1 where it was stated that the intention was a fruitful collaboration between national courts and the Court of Justice without encroachment into their respective jurisdictions. It was intended to ensure that the Treaty was uniformly applied to all member states as follows: The most important question that must be applied in the case of the dispute between Parrot and Tang Ltd is in the interpretation of the Regulation 2001/2001 in order to determine whether or not dispute clause will be invalidated on the basis of Poland not being a Member State.
Since the issue at hand is the interpretation of a European Community Regulation 2001/2001, this will fall under the purview of the matters where the European Court of Justice may set out preliminary rulings. Moreover, ECJ rulings are very powerful, as established in the Rheinmuhlen case3. However, not all cases are suitable for referral to the ECJ, since the jurisprudence of the Court has been geared towards establishing the independence of national Courts and encouraging them to apply the principles of the Treaty by themselves.
This is to ensure that the constitutional framework of the various Member States is preserved and not subordinated to international law in every instance. One of the significant cases in this aspect is that of Foglia v Novello4, where the ECJ clarified that it would not interfere in matters that were referred to it purely on procedural disputes. In the instant case, the dispute concerns the validity of a Regulation, which has clearly spelt out the fact that disputes cannot be adjudicated in the courts of non member states.
National Courts do not have the authority to declare that a Community Act is invalid5 and it was stated in the case of Foto-Frost that when the issue of validity of a community
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