Bernd Giloy v Hauptzollamt Frankfurt am Main-Ost.
Date: 1997-07-17
17 Nevertheless, it considers that the Court does have jurisdiction to give a ruling in this case.  It relies, in particular, on the judgment in Joined Cases C-297/88 and C-197/89 Dzodzi ([1990] ECR I-3763, paragraph 37) and on the fact that the relevant provisions of the Code are applicable to the case before the national court, albeit only on the basis of domestic law.
19 Under Article 177 of the Treaty the Court has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on the interpretation of the Treaty and of acts of the Community institutions.
20 According to settled case-law, the procedure provided for in Article 177 of the Treaty is a means of cooperation between the Court of Justice and national courts.  It follows that it is for the national courts alone which are seised of the case and are responsible for the judgment to be delivered to determine, in view of the special features of each case, both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable them to give their judgment and the relevance of the questions which they put to the Court (see, in particular, the judgments in Dzodzi, cited above, paragraphs 33 and 34, and in Case C-231/89 Gmurzynska-Bscher [1990] ECR I-4003, paragraphs 18 and 19).
21 Consequently, where questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of a provision of Community law, the Court is, in principle, obliged to give a ruling (see Dzodzi and Gmurzynska-Bscher, cited above, paragraphs 35 and 20 respectively).  Neither the wording of Article 177 nor the aim of the procedure established by that article indicates that the Treaty makers intended to exclude from the jurisdiction of the Court requests for a preliminary ruling on a Community provision where the domestic law of a Member State refers to that Community provision in order to determine the rules applicable to a situation which is purely internal to that State (see Dzodzi and Gmurzynska-Bscher, cited above, paragraphs 36 and 25 respectively).
22 A reference by a national court can be rejected only if it appears that the procedure laid down by Article 177 of the Treaty has been misused and a ruling from the Court elicited by means of a contrived dispute, or it is obvious that Community law cannot apply, either directly or indirectly, to the circumstances of the case referred to the Court (see, to this effect, Dzodzi and Gmurzynska-Bscher, cited above, paragraphs 40 and 23).
23 Applying that case-law, the Court has repeatedly held that it has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on questions concerning Community provisions in situations where the facts of the cases being considered by the national courts were outside the scope of Community law but where those provisions had been rendered applicable either by domestic law or merely by virtue of terms in a contract (see, as regards the application of Community law by domestic law, Dzodzi and Gmurzynska-Bscher, cited above; Case 166/84 Thomasdünger [1985] ECR 3001; Case C-384/89 Tomatis and Fulchiron [1991] ECR I-127 and, as regards the application of Community law by the effect of contractual provisions, Case C-88/91 Federconsorzi [1992] ECR I-4035 and Case C-73/89 Fournier [1992] ECR I-5621, all those cases being hereinafter referred to as `the Dzodzi line of cases').  In those cases, the provisions of domestic law and the relevant contractual terms, which incorporated Community provisions, clearly did not limit application of the latter.
24 On the other hand, in its judgment in Case C-346/93 Kleinwort Benson [1995] ECR I-615, the Court held that it had no jurisdiction to give a preliminary ruling on the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters (OJ 1972 L 299, p. 32, hereinafter `the Convention').
25 In Kleinwort Benson, the Court observed, in paragraph 19, that, unlike the situation in the Dzodzi line of cases, the provisions of the Convention which the Court was asked to interpret had not been rendered applicable as such by the law of the contracting State concerned.  In paragraph 16 of its judgment in Kleinwort Benson the Court pointed out that the Act of Parliament in question took the Convention only as a model and only partially reproduced its terms.  It went on to note, in paragraph 18, that express provision was made in the Act for the authorities of the contracting State concerned to adopt modifications `designed to produce divergence' between provisions of the Act and the corresponding provisions of the Convention. Furthermore, the Act also made an express distinction between the provisions applicable to Community situations and those applicable to domestic situations.  In the first case, in interpreting the relevant provisions of the Act, the national courts were bound by the case-law of the Court on the Convention, whereas in the second case they had only to take account of it, so that they could set it aside.
26 In the present case, nothing in the file suggests that the main proceedings will not be settled by application of rules of Community law.
27 Indeed, the file indicates that the provisions of domestic law in question apply without distinction to situations governed by domestic law and to situations governed by Community law, and sometimes to both simultaneously.  In German domestic law, those provisions must be interpreted and applied uniformly, whether the applicable law is domestic law or Community law.  For the purposes of their application to situations governed by Community law, the provisions in question are to be interpreted and applied in accordance with Article 244 of the Code.  Consequently, German law requires that the domestic provisions in question should always be applied in accordance with that article.
28 In those circumstances, where, in regulating internal situations, domestic legislation adopts the same solutions as those adopted in Community law so as to provide for one single procedure in comparable situations, it is clearly in the Community interest that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, provisions or concepts taken from Community law should be interpreted uniformly, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are to apply (see, to this effect, the judgment in Dzodzi, cited above, paragraph 37).