Abstract
This study is aimed at analysing a way of an interpretation of European law, precisely the methods of interpretation employed by the European Court of Justice and binding force of its legał reasoning embodied in preliminary rullings.
In the first part of this work, I have tried to indicate a new attitude and morę comprehensive view on process of ECJ’s legał reasoning. In my opinion, we should consider this process as a kind of matrix of particular elements, a specific puzzle of commonly known methods and techniąues of legal interpretation with a paradigm of European integrity and principles of “uniformity” and “effect utile” as determining factors.
It is important to notice that in the ECJ judgements justificatory arguments do not appear in isolation. They mutually support each other, and the final law-interpreting decision is justified not by this or that particular argument or reason to be found in the judgement on the base of this or that particular method or techniąue of interpretation, but rather by the cumulative weight of all the arguments brought together in the Court’s opinion as a coherent, mutually supporting structure. This is why I postulate for comprehensive “holistic” approach to all above mentioned elements in the “matrix of considerations” by reference to which the legał meaning of the provision in ąuestion is to be identified.
