A reference for a preliminary ruling from the Bulgarian Sofia City Court, “Sofiyski gradski sad” (Case C-181/09) has been declared “manifestly inadmissible” pursuant to Articles 92 (1) and 103 (1) of the ECJ’s Rules of Procedure.

In particular, a call for sharper attention is made to (new) national courts when drafting a reference for a preliminary ruling.

The ECJ first referred inter alia to the teaching of Telemarsicabruzzo and Centro Europa (Cases C-320/90 and C-380/05), stating that the need to provide an interpretation of Community law which will be of use to the national court makes it necessary that the referring court should define at the very least, explain the factual circumstances on which those questions are based.

The Court further stressed that it is important for the referring court to set out the precise reasons why it was unsure as to the interpretation of Community law and why it considered it necessary to refer questions to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling. It is essential that the national judges should give at the very least some explanation of the reasons for the choice of the Community provisions which it requires to be interpreted and of the link it establishes between those provisions and the national legislation applicable to the dispute. To this effect, the Order refers to its previous case law in ABNA Case C-453/03 and Asemfo C-295/05 as well as to its Information note on references from national courts for a preliminary ruling.

Therefore, the order for reference must be sufficiently complete and must contain all the relevant information not only to allow the ECJ to answer but also to permit the Member States’ governments and other parties entitled to submit their observations in accordance with article 20 ECJ’s Statute.

In the present case, the national court had only transmitted to the ECJ the file of the main proceedings and the question for the preliminary ruling without describing the factual and legal context nor explaining the reasons which prompted the national court to raise the question of the interpretation of the Community legislation. In addition, the Bulgarian Court had not given any explanation on the reasons why it identified the Community provision in question as relevant to the case nor on the relationship between this provision and the national legislation applicable to the main proceedings. In light of the above, the ECJ concluded that the reference for a preliminary ruling was manifestly inadmissible (paragraph 12 of the ECJ’s Order : available in French and Bulgarian language versions only).