Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Preliminary rulings - Reference to the Court - Conformity of the decision to refer with the rules of domestic law governing the organization of the courts and their procedure or with the rules concerning international jurisdiction - Not a matter for the Court to determine

(EC Treaty, Art. 177; Convention of 27 September 1968)

2 Preliminary rulings - Jurisdiction of the Court - Limits - Manifestly irrelevant questions and hypothetical questions put in a context precluding the possibility of a useful answer - Confirmation by the Court of its own jurisdiction - Fabricated dispute - Concept

(EC Treaty, Art. 177)

3 Free movement of goods - Quantitative restrictions - Measures having equivalent effect - Oenological control of wine imported from another Member State and accompanied by certificates of analysis issued in that State - Whether permissible - Conditions - Conformity of a given method of analysis with the criteria established by the Community rules - Determination by the national court

(EC Treaty, Arts 30 and 36; Council Regulation No 822/87, Art. 74(2)(c))

Summary

4 In the context of the procedure laid down by Article 177 of the Treaty it is not for the Court to determine whether the decision whereby a matter is brought before it was taken in conformity with the rules of domestic law governing the organization of the courts and their procedure. The position is the same where international jurisdiction falls to be determined on the basis of the Convention of 27 September 1968 on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments in Civil and Commercial Matters, unless the provisions of that convention are expressly made the subject of the reference for a preliminary ruling.

5 It is solely for the national court before which the dispute has been brought, and which must assume responsibility for the subsequent judicial decision, to determine in the light of the particular circumstances of the case both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable it to deliver judgment and the relevance of the questions which it submits to the Court. Consequently, where the questions submitted by the national court concern the interpretation of Community law, the Court of Justice is, in principle, bound to give a ruling.

However, in exceptional circumstances it falls to the Court, in order to confirm its own jurisdiction, to examine the conditions in which the case has been referred to it by the national court, since a request from a national court may be refused only where it is manifest that the interpretation of Community law sought by that court has no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose or where the problem is hypothetical and the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it.

In that regard, the fact that the parties to the main proceedings, who have a common interest in having them determined in a particular way, brought the case before a court other than the appropriate court under the rules on international jurisdiction does not in itself constitute a sufficient ground for holding the reference to the Court to be inadmissible, in so far as there is nothing in the documents before the Court which clearly shows that the parties to the main proceedings had jointly fabricated a dispute as a device for obtaining a preliminary ruling from the Court.

6 Articles 30 and 36 of the Treaty must be interpreted as not precluding a Member State from subjecting wine produced in another Member State to an appropriate control in order to test its conformity with rules laid down in Regulation No 822/87 on the common organization of the market in wine, even where that wine is accompanied by bona fide certificates of analysis issued by research institutes duly authorized in the Member State of origin, provided that those controls are applied in a non-discriminatory manner, that they observe the principle of proportionality and that account is taken, in particular, of the controls already carried out in the Member State of origin.

In regard to the last-mentioned requirement, a second or supplementary analysis may be justified where there is a reasonable presumption that the wine does not meet the requirements of the aforesaid Community rules or where the further analysis is designed to check characteristics of the wine which were not checked in the analysis carried out by the Member State in which it was produced.

Furthermore, it is for the national court to determine, in accordance with the rules of procedure applicable in that Member State, whether the wine analysis method known as `determination of O18/O16 abundance ratio of water in wine' and designed to detect the addition of water to wine is consistent with the criteria of accuracy, repeatability and reproducibility laid down in Article 74(2)(c) of the aforesaid regulation. In that context, the national court must also ascertain whether the International Vine and Wine Office has recognized the method in question.