BOSPHORUS HAVA YOLLARI TURİZM VE TİCARET ANONİM ŞİRKETİ v. IRELAND JUDGMENT 26 domestic acts and omissions (legislative, executive and judicial) in breach of Community law provided the conditions for liability were fulfilled 1. (c) Preliminary reference procedure 96. In order to assist national courts in correctly implementing Community law and maintaining its uniform application2, Article 177 (now Article 234) provides national courts with the opportunity to consult the ECJ. In particular, Article 177 reads as follows: “The Court of Justice shall have jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning: (a) the interpretation of this Treaty; (b) the validity and interpretation of acts of the institutions of the Community ...; ... Where such a question is raised before any court or tribunal of a Member State, that court or tribunal may, if it considers that a decision on the question is necessary to enable it to give judgment, request the Court of Justice to give a ruling thereon. Where any such question is raised in a case pending before a court or tribunal of a Member State against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law, that court or tribunal shall bring the matter before the Court of Justice.” 97. The ECJ described the nature of this preliminary reference procedure as follows3: “30. ... the procedure provided for by Article 234 EC is an instrument of cooperation between the Court of Justice and national courts by means of which the former provides the latter with interpretation of such Community law as is necessary for them to give judgment in cases upon which they are called to adjudicate ... 31. In the context of that cooperation, it is for the national court seised of the dispute, which alone has direct knowledge of the facts giving rise to the dispute and must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is, in principle, bound to give a ruling ... ” 1. See Brasserie du Pêcheur S.A. v. Bundesrepublik Deutschland and The Queen v. Secretary of State for Transport, ex parte Factortame Ltd and Others, Joined Cases C-46/93 and C-48/93 [1996] ECR I-1029; see also Gerhard Köbler v. Republik Österreich, Case C-224/01 [2003] ECR I-10239. 2. Commission of the European Communities v. Portuguese Republic, Case C-55/02 [2004] ECR I-9387, § 45. 3. See Eugen Schmidberger, Internationale Transporte und Planzüge v. Republik Österreich, Case C-112/00 [2003] ECR I-5659.