Judgment_paragraph 257 · Criminal proceedings against PM and Others (C-357/19)

257Accordingly, the national court which exercised the discretion or complied with its obligation to make a reference to the Court for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 TFEU cannot be prevented from forthwith applying EU law in accordance with the decision or the case-law of the Court, since otherwise the effectiveness of that provision would be impaired (see, to that effect, judgments of 9 March 1978, Simmenthal, 106/77, EU:C:1978:49, paragraph 20, and of 5 April 2016, PFE, C‑689/13, EU:C:2016:199, paragraph 39). It must be added that the power to do everything necessary, when applying EU law, to disregard national rules or a national practice which might prevent EU rules from having full force and effect is an integral part of the role of a court of the European Union which falls to the national court responsible for applying, within its jurisdiction, the EU rules, and therefore the exercise of that power constitutes a guarantee that is essential to judicial independence as provided for in the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU (see, to that effect, judgments of 26 March 2020, Miasto Łowicz and Prokurator Generalny, C‑558/18 and C‑563/18, EU:C:2020:234, paragraph 59, and of 23 November 2021, IS (Illegality of the order for reference), C‑564/19, EU:C:2021:949, paragraph 91).