Judgment;Summary — ECLI:EU:C:2024:569
Date: 2024-07-04
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Sixth Chamber
Subject matter: Approximation of laws;Transport
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Anonymised version 
Translation C-283/23 – 1 
Case C-283/23 [Marhon] 1 
Request for a preliminary ruling 
Date lodged:  
2 May 2023 
Referring court:  
Cour de cassation (Belgium) 
Date of the decision to refer:  
26 April 2023 
Appellants in cassation:  
FB 
JL  
  
Cour de cassation (Court of Cassation, Belgium) 
Judgment 
[…] 
I. FB, […] residing in […] (Belgium), accused, 
II. JL, limited liability company, whose registered office is in […] (Belgium), 
party liable under civil law,  
appellants in cassation, 
 
1 The name of the present case is a fictitious name. It does not correspond to the real name of any party to the proceedings. 
EN 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 26. 4. 2023 – CASE C-283/23 
 
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[…] 
I. PROCEDURE BEFORE THE COURT 
The appeals are directed against a judgment delivered on 23 March 2022 by the 
tribunal correctionnel d’Eupen (Eupen Criminal Court), acting as an appeal court. 
[…] 
II. RELEVANT FACTS AND BACKGROUND TO THE 
PROCEEDINGS 
1 On 28 February 2019, in Saint-Vith, the police carried out an inspection of a 
vehicle for transporting timber consisting of a tractor (lorry) and a trailer 
belonging to the limited liability company JL. 
The tractor and trailer were placed on a weighing device in the Eifel police 
district. The weight tickets indicate that the tractor weighs 38 240 kg and the 
trailer 26 740 kg, thus a total weight exceeding the maximum authorised mass of 
20 856 kg. 
2 The driver of the lorry, FB, was summoned to appear before the Saint-Vith section 
of the tribunal de police d’Eupen (Local Criminal Court, Eupen) for having 
committed the following offences: 
- charge A: as a driver on the public highway, transporting goods by road 
using a vehicle whose gross vehicle mass exceeds the maximum authorised mass, 
deemed to have been carried out without a valid national or international transport 
licence; 
- charge B: as a shipper carrying goods subject to Community legislation, the 
Law of 15 July 2013 (set out in full below) or the decrees implementing that law, 
giving instructions or taking measures which resulted in the maximum authorised 
masses and dimensions of vehicles or combinations of vehicles being exceeded. 
The driver’s employer, the company referred to above, was made a party to the 
proceedings as a party liable under civil law. 
3 By a judgment delivered on 2 February 2021, the Saint-Vith section of the Local 
Criminal Court, Eupen, acquitted the driver of the lorry of the abovementioned 
charges on the ground that the weight tickets do not contain any indication as to 
the person who performed the weighing or the make and serial number of the 
weighing device used and therefore it is not possible to determine whether the 
tickets do indeed relate to that weighing device. 
The procureur du Roi (Crown Prosecutor) appealed against that judgment. 
MARHON 
 
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4 Before the tribunal de première instance d’Eupen (Eupen Court of First Instance), 
Criminal Chamber sitting as an appeal court, the driver of the lorry and his 
employer argued that the weight of the vehicle had not been measured using a 
weighing instrument that complied with the requirements laid down by the 
applicable regulatory provision. 
In their view, the weighing instrument used is governed by the arrêté royal du 12 
octobre 2010 relatif à l’approbation, à la vérification et à l’installation des 
instruments de mesures utilisés pour surveiller l’application de la loi relative à la 
police de la circulation routière (Royal Decree of 12 October 2010 on the 
approval, verification and installation of measuring instruments used to monitor 
the application of the Law on the regulation of road traffic). 
The Eupen court rejected that claim. 
It noted that Article 1 of the Royal Decree of 12 October 2010, cited above, 
provides that it applies ‘subject to the application of other legislation concerning 
specific instruments’ and considered that, in the present case, the weighing 
instrument used is governed by the rule transposing into Belgian law Directive 
2014/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 
on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making 
available on the market of non-automatic weighing instruments, namely the arrêté 
royal du 12 avril 2016 relatif aux instruments de pesage à fonctionnement non 
automatique (Royal Decree of 12 April 2016 on non-automatic weighing 
instruments). 
After having found, inter alia, that the make and serial number of the weighing 
instrument were determined, that it was calibrated, that the apparatus had 
undergone periodic verification valid for four years and that both the lorry driver 
and his employer had acknowledged the overload mentioned in the minutes, the 
Eupen court, by judgment of 23 March 2022, ordered the driver of the lorry, on 
the basis of charges A and B, to pay a fine of […] EUR [3 200] […], and 
disqualified him from driving any motor vehicle for a period of three months. 
5 The driver of the lorry and his employer brought an appeal on a point of law 
against that judgment. 
III. RELEVANT LEGAL PROVISIONS 
6 The acts of charge A are punishable pursuant to Article 21, first paragraph, point 5 
and Article 35(4) of the arrêté royal du 22 mai 2014 relatif au transport de 
marchandises par route (Royal Decree of 22 May 2014 on road haulage) and 
Article 41(3) of the loi du 15 juillet 2013 relative au transport de marchandises par 
route et portant exécution du règlement (CE) No 1071/2009 du Parlement 
européen et du Conseil du 21 octobre 2009 établissant des règles communes sur 
les conditions à respecter pour exercer la profession de transporteur par route, et 
abrogeant la directive 96/26/CE du Conseil et portant exécution du règlement 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 26. 4. 2023 – CASE C-283/23 
 
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(CE) No 1072/2009 du Parlement européen et du Conseil du 21 octobre 2009 
établissant des règles communes pour l’accès au marché du transport international 
de marchandises par route (Law of 15 July 2013 on road haulage and 
implementing Regulation (EC) No 1071/2009 of the European Parliament and of 
the Council of 21 October 2009 establishing common rules concerning the 
conditions to be complied with to pursue the occupation of road transport operator 
and repealing Council Directive 96/26/EC and implementing Regulation (EC) 
No 1072/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 
on common rules for access to the international road haulage market). 
In accordance with the first paragraph of Article 21 of the royal decree cited 
above, ‘national transport licences and Community transport licences shall not be 
valid … 5. where they are used for a vehicle or combination of vehicles whose 
gross vehicle mass or whose dimensions exceed the standards authorised for that 
vehicle or that combination of vehicles or the standards authorised by the general 
rules on the technical standards which motor vehicles, their trailers, their 
components and safety equipment must satisfy’. 
Article 35(4) of that decree provides that ‘international transport licences shall not 
be valid … where they are used for a vehicle or combination of vehicles whose 
gross vehicle mass or whose dimensions exceed the standards authorised for that 
vehicle or that combination of vehicles or the standards authorised by the general 
rules on the technical standards which motor vehicles, their trailers, their 
components and safety equipment must satisfy’. 
Article 41(3) of the Law of 15 July 2013 provides that ‘those who infringe the 
following provisions of Community legislation, this Law and its implementing 
decrees shall be liable to imprisonment of eight days to one year and a fine of five 
hundred to fifty thousand euros[…], or one of those penalties only: 1. the 
obligation to hold a valid transport licence …’. 
7 The acts relating to charge B are referred to in Article 43(3) of the 
abovementioned Law of 15 July 2013, which refers to the penalties provided for 
in Article 41(3). 
Article 43(3) of that law provides: ‘The instructing party, the consignor, the 
freight forwarder or the forwarding agent for the carriage of goods subject to 
Community legislation, this Law or its implementing decrees shall be punished in 
the same way as the perpetrators of the offences mentioned below if they have 
given instructions or taken measures which resulted in those offences: 1. 
exceeding the maximum authorised masses and dimensions of vehicles or 
combinations of vehicles’. 
8 Article 1 of the Royal Decree of 12 April 2016 states: ‘This decree transposes 
Directive 2014/31/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 
26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating 
to the making available on the market of non-automatic weighing instruments’. 
MARHON 
 
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Anonymised version 
Article 2(1) of that decree provides that it ‘shall apply to all non-automatic 
weighing instruments’. 
Article 2(2) states: 
‘For the purposes of this Decree, the following categories of use of non-automatic 
weighing instruments shall be distinguished: 
1. determination of mass for commercial transactions; 
2. determination of mass for the calculation of a toll, tariff, tax, bonus, penalty, 
remuneration, indemnity or similar type of payment; 
3. determination of mass for the application of laws or regulations or for an 
expert opinion given in court proceedings; 
4. determination of mass in the practice of medicine for weighing patients for 
the purposes of monitoring, diagnosis and medical treatment; 
5. determination of mass for making up medicines on prescription in a 
pharmacy and determination of mass in analyses carried out in medical and 
pharmaceutical laboratories; 
6. determination of price on the basis of mass for the purposes of direct sales to 
the public and the making-up of prepackages; 
7. all applications other than those listed in points 1 to 6’. 
Under Article 32, ‘instruments used for the applications listed in Article 2(2)(1) to 
(6) shall be subject to the general rules concerning the periodic verification and 
technical inspection of measuring instruments’. 
IV. DECISION OF THE COURT 
A. The appeal brought by the driver of the lorry: 
The second ground of appeal: 
First part: 
9 The ground of appeal alleges infringement of the Royal Decree of 12 April 2016 
on non-automatic weighing instruments. 
Before the criminal court, the applicants argued that the weighing device used by 
the police to determine that the vehicle was overloaded did not satisfy the 
conditions laid down in the Royal Decree of 12 October 2010 on the approval, 
verification and installation of measuring instruments used to monitor the 
application of the Law on the regulation of road traffic. 
REQUEST FOR A PRELIMINARY RULING OF 26. 4. 2023 – CASE C-283/23 
 
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The ground of appeal criticises the judgment for considering that that weighing 
instrument was not subject to the criteria laid down in the abovementioned royal 
decree but had to meet the requirements laid down in the Royal Decree of 
12 April 2016 cited above. According to the driver of the lorry, the latter royal 
decree, which transposes Directive 2014/31/EU of the European Parliament and of 
the Council of 26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member 
States relating to the making available on the market of non-automatic weighing 
instruments, is not intended to apply in criminal proceedings. The driver of the 
lorry also submits that the Royal Decree of 12 October 2010 provides for the 
application of more specific approval standards for the inspection body than those 
required by the Royal Decree of 12 April 2016. 
10 The scope of the abovementioned directive is determined by Article 1 thereof and, 
in accordance with the second paragraph of that provision, for the purposes of the 
directive, a number of categories of use of non-automatic weighing instruments 
are distinguished, including, in particular, under point (c), ‘determination of mass 
for the application of laws or regulations’ and, under point (g), ‘all applications 
other than those listed in [the preceding] points’. 
On the one hand, Article 3(1) of the directive provides that ‘Member States shall 
take all steps to ensure that only instruments that meet the applicable requirements 
of this Directive may be made available on the market’. 
Moreover, Article 2(3) defines ‘making available on the market’ as any supply of 
an instrument for distribution or use on the Union market in the course of a 
commercial activity, whether in return for payment or free of charge. 
However, on the other hand, Article 3(2) and Article 3(3) of the directive provide 
that ‘Member States shall take all steps to ensure that instruments may not be put 
into service for the uses referred to in points (a) to (f) of Article 1(2) unless they 
meet the requirements of this Directive [or] continue to conform to the applicable 
requirements of this Directive’. 
The latter provisions do not refer to the concept of ‘making available on the 
market’ and, therefore, to the distribution or use, in the course of a commercial 
activity, of the instruments concerned, but refer to the use of those instruments 
inter alia with a view to determining the mass for the application of laws or 
regulations. 
However, the title of the directive appears to be more restrictive, in that it seeks to 
harmonise the laws of the Member States relating to the ‘making available on the 
market’ of non-automatic weighing instruments. 
The Royal Decree of 12 April 2016 reproduces the content of the provisions of the 
directive referred to above. 
Therefore, the question arises as to the application of the directive and the rules 
transposing it into Belgian law to a situation such as that in the present case where 
MARHON 
 
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the weighing instrument in question has been used for the purposes of applying 
criminal legislation or rules, that is to say legislation or rules that are unrelated, as 
far as the user is concerned, to a commercial activity. 
11 Since that question concerns the interpretation of an act of an institution of the 
European Union, it is necessary, in accordance with the third paragraph of 
Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, to request a 
preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union. 
B. The appeal brought by the employer: 
12 The Court stays the proceedings pending the answer to the question referred for a 
preliminary ruling set out in the operative part of this judgment. 
ON THOSE GROUNDS, 
THE COURT 
Stays the proceedings pending a preliminary ruling by the Court of Justice of the 
European Union on the following question: 
‘Are Articles 1, 2(3) and 3 of Directive 2014/31/EU of the European Parliament 
and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the 
Member States relating to the making available on the market of non-automatic 
weighing instruments applicable to the use, by judicial or police authorities, of 
non-automatic weighing instruments for the purposes of determining the mass of 
vehicles for the application of national legislation or regulations, which are subject 
to criminal penalties, and which — such as (i) Articles 41(3)(1) and 43(3)(1) of 
the Law of 15 July 2013 on road haulage and implementing Regulation (EC) 
No 1071/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 
establishing common rules concerning the conditions to be complied with to 
pursue the occupation of road transport operator and repealing Council Directive 
96/26/EC and implementing Regulation (EC) No 1072/2009 of the European 
Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009 on common rules for access to 
the international road haulage market and (ii) Articles 21, first paragraph, point 5 
and 35(4) of the Royal Decree of 22 May 2014 on road haulage — prohibit the 
use on the road of vehicles whose measured mass exceeds the maximum 
authorised mass?’. 
[…] This judgment is delivered in Brussels by the Cour de cassation (Court of 
Cassation), Second Chamber, […] at a public hearing on the twenty-sixth of April 
two thousand and twenty-three […]. 
F. Gobert  F. Stévenart Meeûs  F. Lugentz 
T. Konsek  E. de Formanoir  F. Roggen