CELEX: C2005/182/05
Language: en
Date: 2005-07-23 00:00:00
Title: Judgment of the Court (First Chamber) of 26 May 2005 in Case C-20/03: Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Brugge in the criminal proceedings against Marcel Burmanjer, René Alexander Van Der Linden, Anthony De Jong (Free movement of goods — Article 28 EC — Measures having equivalent effect — Itinerant sale — Conclusion of contracts for subscriptions to periodicals — Prior authorisation)

23.7.2005   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 182/3
            
         
      JUDGMENT OF THE COURT
   
   (First Chamber)
   of 26 May 2005
   in Case C-20/03: Reference for a preliminary ruling from the Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Brugge in the criminal proceedings against Marcel Burmanjer, René Alexander Van Der Linden, Anthony De Jong (1)
   
   (Free movement of goods - Article 28 EC - Measures having equivalent effect - Itinerant sale - Conclusion of contracts for subscriptions to periodicals - Prior authorisation)
   (2005/C 182/05)
   Language of the case: Dutch
   In Case C-20/03: reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 234 EC from the Rechtbank van eerste aanleg te Brugge (Belgium), made by decision of 17 January 2003, received at the Court on 21 January 2003, in the criminal proceedings against Marcel Burmanjer, René Alexander Van Der Linden, Anthony De Jong — the Court (First Chamber), composed of P. Jann, President of the Chamber, A. Rosas (Rapporteur), K. Lenaerts, S. von Bahr and K. Schiemann, Judges; P. Léger, Advocate General; M.-F. Contet, Principal Administrator, Registrar, gave a judgment on 26 May 2005, the operative part of which is as follows:
   Article 28 EC does not preclude national rules under which a Member State makes an offence of the itinerant sale within its territory, without prior authorisation, of subscriptions to periodicals, where such rules apply, without distinction based on the origin of the products in question, to all the economic operators concerned carrying on their activity within that State, provided that such rules affect in the same manner, in law and in fact, the marketing of products originating in that State and that of products from other Member States.
   It is for the referring court to determine, having regard to the facts of the main proceedings, whether the application of national law is such as to ensure that those rules affect in the same manner, in law and in fact, the marketing of domestic products and that of products from other Member States, and, if that is not the case, to establish whether the rules in question are justified by an objective in the general interest within the meaning which the Court's case-law gives to that expression and whether they are proportional to that objective.
   
      (1)  OJ C 70 of 22.03.2003.