Ordre des barreaux francophones et germanophone and Others v Conseil des ministres.
Date: 2007-06-26
18. According to settled case-law, the procedure established in Article 234 EC rests on a clear separation of functions between the national courts and the Court of Justice, with the result that it is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court (see Case C‑448/01 EVN and Wienstrom  [2003] ECR I‑14527, paragraph 74, and Case C‑145/03 Keller  [2005] ECR I‑2529, paragraph 33).
28. On that point, the Court has consistently held that, if the wording of secondary Community law is open to more than one interpretation, preference should be given to the interpretation which renders the provision consistent with the EC Treaty rather than to the interpretation which leads to its being incompatible with the Treaty (see Case 218/82 Commission  v Council  [1983] ECR 4063, paragraph 15, and Case C‑135/93 Spain  v Commission [1995] ECR I‑1651, paragraph 37). Member States must not only interpret their national law in a manner consistent with Community law but also make sure they do not rely on an interpretation of wording of secondary legislation which would be in conflict with the fundamental rights protected by the Community legal order or with the other general principles of Community law (Case C‑101/01 Lindqvist  [2003] ECR I‑12971, paragraph 87).
29. It must also be stated that fundamental rights form an integral part of the general principles of law whose observance the Court ensures. For that purpose, the Court draws inspiration from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States and from the guidelines supplied by international instruments for the protection of human rights on which the Member States have collaborated or to which they are signatories. In that regard, the ECHR has special significance (see, to that effect, Case 29/69 Stauder [1969] ECR 419, paragraph 7; Case C‑274/99 P Connolly  v Commission  [2001] ECR I‑1611, paragraph 37; Case C‑283/05 ASML [2005] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 26). Thus the right to a fair trial, which derives inter alia from Article 6 of the ECHR, constitutes a fundamental right which the European Union respects as a general principle under Article 6(2) EU.
31. According to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the concept of ‘a fair trial’ referred to in Article 6 of the ECHR consists of various elements, which include, inter alia, the rights of the defence, the principle of equality of arms, the right of access to the courts, and the right of access to a lawyer both in civil and criminal proceedings (see Golder  v United Kingdom , judgment of 21 February 1975, Series A No. 18, §§ 26 to 40; Campbell and Fell  v United Kingdom , judgment of 28 June 1984, Series A No. 80, §§ 97 to 99, §§ 105 to 107 and §§ 111 to 113; and Borgers  v Belgium , judgment of 30 October 1991, Series A No. 214-B, § 24).