ABSTRACT
The preliminary rulings procedure, whereby national courts and tribunals refer questions of Community law to the Court of Justice, has featured in many of the cases in the previous chapters. It is through this procedure that disputes at the national level in which, as we have seen, individuals have asserted their Community rights against their Member States that the Court has established and developed such basic concepts as supremacy, direct effect and State liability. Whether the drafters of the Treaty foresaw that Article 177 (now 234) would provide the vehicle for such a fundamentally significant outcome is doubtful.
