National courts as regulatory agencies and the application of EU law

The European legal order gives an important role to national judges. They are expected to observe EU law rules and apply them to the domestic legal disputes where appropriate. For a long time, the academic literature on the application of European law in the courts of the member states had a normative and doctrinal focus. It described what European law and the Court of Justice of the EU expects from national judges. Data from different studies, however, shows some variation in how judges see this role. Based on these findings, this article introduces four types of rule application, which are constructed along the lines of more or less use of EU law. These types are meant not only to bring order to the data collected but to inspire further research on the influence of the organization of courts and court systems on decision-making patterns.