ABSTRACT
The purpose of the reference procedure, so far as the Community is concerned, is to prevent the emergence of a body of national case law that is at variance with the rules of Community law coming into existence in other Member States. The jurisdiction of the Court of Justice under Article 234 EC is limited to ruling on the validity of a Community measure and to interpreting a provision of Community law. The Court will also ordinarily take a generous approach to the order for reference. It will interpret all provisions of Community law which the national court needs in order to determine the action pending before it, even if those provisions are expressly indicated in the questions referred by the national court. The sorts of bodies that the Court tends to exclude are those that perform principally an investigative function, or that form part of a preliminary assessment procedure prior to a judicial determination of rights.
