http://repub.eur.nl/res/aut/28494/ List of Publications en http://repub.eur.nl/static-eur/img/logo.png http://repub.eur.nl http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/37318/ 2012-10-05T00:00:00Z The study seeks to provide a better understanding of the way civil judges of lower courts in Poland – a relatively new Member States of the EU - behave in the context of EU law and, moreover, to explain how the national judges adapt to the new legal circumstances created by the law of the European Union. For that purpose, the study examines the way national judges approach the law of the European Union by providing empirical, that is to say quantitative and qualitative data gathered among Polish private law judges of lower courts. The respective data was collected by means of a questionnaire distributed among the respective judges and semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with them. The present study is a descriptive attempt at evaluating and explaining what is actually happening in the Polish civil courts in the context of EU law application and more precisely how and why national judges participate in the process of legal integration within the European Union. For the foregoing purpose, the study focuses on three a priori established set of problems which relate to the knowledge of EU law and of the mechanisms of its application among national judges, the daily experiences of judges with the application of EU law and their personal attitudes towards the law of the European Union and the new role it imposes on them and the Union itself. The three clusters of variables are scrutinized in a broader institutional and operational legal context of the daily judicial functioning. In that sense, the study first establishes the formal, legal context in which the judges function and respectively it focuses on the way judges personally construct the EU legality, the way they perceive and understand their function as EU law judges and the way they experience the law of the European Union in the daily practice. By and large, the book offers a contextual and nuanced approach to the problem of operation of EU law in the national legal order. http://repub.eur.nl/res/pub/23144/ 2011-04-06T00:00:00Z Since May 2004 Polish administrative courts have passed a great deal of judgments in which the law of the European Union (formerly European Community law) has played either the main role or a subsidiary role in the proceedings. This article seeks to examine how the above-mentioned courts comply with the expectations which are put on them by EU law and how they participate in the process of legal integration within the EU. In this context, the author scrutinizes how the national judiciary adjudicating in the administrative law area understands, interprets, employs and applies the systemic principles of EU law such as: supremacy, and (in) direct effect and effectiveness. In addition, the participation of national courts in the process of a dialogue with the Court of Justice of the European Union through the preliminary ruling procedure is captured. The analysis is not aimed at being exhaustive and focuses solely on the total impact of EU law on the national judiciary and the general trends in the judicial application of EU law, that is to say the overall reception of EU law and the dimension of the EU-friendliness displayed by Polish administrative courts.