Joined Cases C-554/21, C-622/21 and C-727/21, Hann Invest and Others: Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 11 July 2024 (requests for a preliminary ruling from the Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske – Croatia) – Financijska agencija v HANN-INVEST d.o.o. (References for a preliminary ruling – Second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU – Effective legal protection in the fields covered by Union law – Independence of the judiciary – Tribunal previously established by law – Fair hearing – Case-law Registration Service – National legislation providing for a registrations judge to be established in courts of second instance having, in practice, the power to stay the delivery of a judgment, to give instructions to judicial panels and to request that a section meeting be convened – National legislation providing for the power, for meetings of a section or of all judges of a court, to put forward binding legal positions, including for cases which have already been deliberated)
Date: 2024-07-11
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: independence of the judiciary, judge, right to an effective remedy, right to justice








C_202405192EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2024/5192


2.9.2024






Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 11 July 2024 (requests for a preliminary ruling from the Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske – Croatia) – Financijska agencija v HANN-INVEST d.o.o.


(Joined Cases C-554/21, C-622/21 and C-727/21,
                (1)
Hann Invest and Others)

(References for a preliminary ruling - Second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU - Effective legal protection in the fields covered by Union law - Independence of the judiciary - Tribunal previously established by law - Fair hearing - Case-law Registration Service - National legislation providing for a registrations judge to be established in courts of second instance having, in practice, the power to stay the delivery of a judgment, to give instructions to judicial panels and to request that a section meeting be convened - National legislation providing for the power, for meetings of a section or of all judges of a court, to put forward binding ‘legal positions’, including for cases which have already been deliberated)
(C/2024/5192)
Language of the case: Croatian

Referring court

Visoki trgovački sud Republike Hrvatske

Parties to the main proceedings


Appellant: Financijska agencija

Respondents: HANN-INVEST d.o.o. (C-554/21), MINERAL-SEKULINE d.o.o. (C-622/21) and UDRUGA KHL MEDVEŠČAK ZAGREB (C-727/21)

Operative part of the judgment

The second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU
must be interpreted as precluding national law from providing for a mechanism internal to a national court pursuant to which:






—


the judicial decision adopted by the judicial panel responsible for the case may be sent to the parties for the purpose of closing the case concerned only if its content has been approved by a registrations judge who is not a member of that judicial panel;










—


a section meeting of that court has the power to compel, by putting forward a ‘legal position’, the judicial panel responsible for the case to alter the content of the judicial decision which it previously adopted, even though that section meeting also includes judges other than those belonging to that judicial panel and, as the case may be, persons from outside the court concerned, before whom the parties do not have the opportunity to put forward their arguments.






(1)  
            OJ C 222, 7.6.2022.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2024/5192/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)