Reply to post: Re: Doesn't bode well for a UK out of the EU then ?

Re: Doesn't bode well for a UK out of the EU then ?

Jellied Eel,

I believe that lower courts can ask for a ruling from the ECJ on a point of european law impacting on national law. I'm pretty sure the High Court and Court of Appeal in the UK have done it, before the case even got to the Supreme Court - but I'm not sure if lower courts can.

Everyone's legal system is different too. So in some cases you have to ask for a lower court's permission to appeal, in others you can do it anyway as a matter of standard procedure. And that isn't even standard in any single jurisdiction, let alone internationally.

In the US it's even weirder. As their Supreme Court look at the cases that have been submitted for their attention, have a good old think for a couple of months, and then announce which ones they'll look at and which ones they're not interested in. But then the US Supremes and the ECJ both tend to rule on the point of law in question, give their guidance and then throw the case back to the lower court in question - who then get to do the actually judging on the individual merits of the case.

Law is complex.

The decision to fight in Germany seems utterly perverse to me. Much better to win a few cases in other jurisdictions and try to crack the German nut later. Not that I think their case ever had a hope anywhere. The GDPR is pretty clear on a lot of this stuff, and just whining that you should have an exception because you wantn one is going to piss off most judges in most places. They're liable to think that their time is being wasted.