Black Box in Luxembourg: The Bewildering Experience of National Judges and Lawyers in the Context of the Preliminary Reference Procedure

The interaction between national courts and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in the context of the preliminary ruling procedure is often presented as a dialogue. Despite this being the dominant discourse, we know very little of how the ECJ's main interlocutors actually experience their interaction with it. This article reflects critically on the discourse of dialogue on the basis of interviews with two of the most important ECJ interlocutors: referring national judges and the parties and their lawyers. By juxtaposing the different roles assigned to these actors during the procedure, the article shows that referring judges may feel that they are not equal discussion partners in a dialogue and the parties and their lawyers are assigned a role that they feel unequipped to fulfil.