Judgment_paragraph 39 · Thomas Pringle v Government of Ireland and Others (C-370/12)

39In that regard, it must be recalled that any party has the right, in proceedings before the national courts, to plead, before the court hearing the case, the invalidity of an act of the Union and to ask that court, which has no jurisdiction itself to declare the act invalid, to put that question to the Court by means of a reference for a preliminary ruling (see Case C‑239/99 Nachi Europe [2001] ECR I‑1197, paragraph 35; Case C‑50/00 P Unión de Pequeños Agricultores v Council [2002] ECR I‑6677, paragraph 40, and Case C‑550/09 E and F [2010] ECR I‑6213, paragraph 45). It must be emphasised that under indent (b) of the first paragraph of Article 267 TFEU the admissibility of a reference for a preliminary ruling made on the basis of that provision is not subject to a condition that such a party has complied with a time‑limit within which a case challenging the validity of the Union act concerned must be brought before the national court or tribunal with jurisdiction. In the absence of regulation by the Union, time-limits for the introduction of actions before national courts are to be determined by the national rules of procedure and it is exclusively for the courts and tribunals of the Member States to assess whether such time-limits have been respected in the main proceedings.