To adequately assess the approach to European law in German jurisprudence is an impossible task to fulfill, yet one which is indispensable.
The impossibility of such an attempt becomes clear if one realizes the multitude and variety of courts and judicial procedures existing in the Federal Republic of Germany. Our present judicial system is composed of 1,162 national courts with a total of about 21,000 judges.1 Eight of these courts are federal courts, the others are courts of the Länder, i.e. of the sixteen Member States of the Federation.