As a citizen of the EU there are two ways you can have a case brought before the Court of Justice or the Court of First Instance.

Preliminary rulings

The first way is indirect and may take place in connection with cases which are heard in national courts.

A national court which is faced with a legal problem which concerns EU rules can refer questions on the interpretation of EU law to the Court of Justice. The Court of Justice then answers the question in the form of a preliminary ruling. In this way it is possible to have your case brought before the Court of Justice through a case which is pending before a national court

Decisions

To a limited extent it is also possible as a citizen to bring a case directly before the Court of First Instance to review a decision made by one of the EU’s institutions.

However, this possibility is not a general right which anyone can freely avail themselves of. In order for a person or an undertaking to be able to appeal against a decision, the decision must be addressed to the person in question or concern the plaintiff directly and individually.

It is not possible for citizens to bring cases against other citizens or companies, undertakings or Member States before the Court of Justice. Such cases must instead be brought before the national courts.

Cases which have been lost in the last instance in the Danish court system cannot be appealed to the European Court of Justice. The European Court of Justice is not a court of appeal for decisions made by the national courts and cannot set aside or modify decisions of the national courts.

If all the national avenues of complaint and appeal have been exhausted, it might be worth considering whether it is possible to bring the case before the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.