Ministerul Justiţiei și Libertăţilor Cetăţenești v Ştefan Agafiţei and Others.
Date: 2011-07-07
24. In that regard, it should first be noted that, under Article 267 TFEU, the Court of Justice has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings concerning the interpretation of the Treaties and of acts of the institutions of the European Union.
25. According to settled case-law, the procedure provided for in Article 267 TFEU is a means of cooperation between the Court of Justice and national courts. It follows that it is for the national courts alone which are seised of the case and are responsible for the judgment to be delivered to determine, in view of the special features of each case, both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable them to give their judgment and the relevance of the questions which they put to the Court (see, in particular, Joined Cases C‑297/88 and C‑197/89 Dzodzi [1990] ECR I‑3763, paragraphs 33 and 34; Case C‑28/95 Leur‑Bloem [1997] ECR I‑4161, paragraph 24; and Case C‑409/06 Winner Wetten  [2010] ECR I‑0000, paragraph 36 and the case‑law cited).
26. Consequently, where questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of a provision of European Union law, the Court is, in principle, obliged to give a ruling (see, in particular, Dzodzi , paragraph 35; Leur‑Bloem , paragraph 25; and Winner Wetten , paragraph 36 and the case‑law cited).
27. Nevertheless, the Court has also stated that, in exceptional circumstances, it can examine the conditions in which the case was referred to it by the national court, in order to confirm its own jurisdiction (see, inter alia, Case C‑13/05 Chacón Navas  [2006] ECR I‑6467, paragraph 33 and the case‑law cited). The Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court only where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of European Union law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its purpose, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to enable it to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, inter alia, Chacón Navas , paragraph 33, and Winner Wetten , paragraph 37 and the case‑law cited).
28. It is therefore apparent from settled case-law that a reference by a national court can be rejected if, inter alia, it is obvious that European Union law cannot be applied, either directly or indirectly, to the circumstances of the case (see, inter alia, Leur Bloem , paragraph 26 and the case‑law cited).
31. Article 1 of Directive 2000/78 states that the purpose of the directive is to lay down a general framework, as regards employment and occupation, for combating discrimination on the grounds of religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation. The purpose of Directive 2000/43, as is apparent from Article 1 thereof, is to lay down a framework for combating discrimination on the grounds of racial or ethnic origin.
32. However, it is apparent from the order for reference that the discrimination at issue in the main proceedings is not based on any of the grounds thus listed in those directives, but operates instead on the basis of the socio-professional category, within the meaning of national legislation, to which the persons concerned belong, or their place of work.
33. It follows that a situation such as that at issue in the main proceedings falls outside the general frameworks established by Directives 2000/43 and 2000/78 respectively for combating certain forms of discrimination.
34. As is apparent from Article 2(1) of those directives in particular, the principle of equal treatment enshrined in the directives applies by reference to the grounds exhaustively listed in Article 1 thereof (see, to that effect, Case C‑303/06 Coleman  [2008] ECR I‑5603, paragraphs 38 and 46).
35. It should also be recalled in that connection that Article 13 EC – now Article 19 TFEU – which contains only rules governing the competences of the Community and on the basis of which the directives in question were adopted, does not refer to discrimination on grounds of socio-professional category or place of work, so that neither Article 13 EC nor Article 19 TFEU can even constitute a legal basis for Council measures to combat such discrimination (see, to that effect, Chacón Navas , paragraph 55, and Coleman , paragraph 46).
38. The Court has repeatedly held that it has jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings on questions concerning European Union provisions in situations where the facts of the cases being considered by the national courts were outside the scope of European Union law and therefore fell within the competence of the Member States alone, but where those provisions of European Union law had been rendered applicable by domestic law due to a reference made by that law to the content of those provisions (see, inter alia, Leur-Bloem , paragraphs 25 and 27 and the case‑law cited, and Case C‑247/97 Schoonbroodt  [1998] ECR I‑8095, paragraphs 14 and 15).
39. The Court has stated in particular in that regard that where, in regulating purely internal situations, domestic legislation seeks to adopt the same solutions as those adopted in European Union law in order, for example, to avoid discrimination against foreign nationals or any distortion of competition or to provide for one single procedure in comparable situations, it is clearly in the European Union interest that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, provisions or concepts taken from European Union law should be interpreted uniformly, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are to apply (see, inter alia, Leur Bloem , paragraph 32 and the case-law cited, and Case C‑130/95 Giloy  [1997] ECR I‑4291, paragraph 28).
45. Second, Article 15 of Directive 2000/43 and Article 17 of Directive 2000/78 simply require the Member States to introduce rules on sanctions applicable to infringements of the national provisions adopted pursuant to those directives and state that such sanctions must be effective, proportionate and dissuasive and that they may comprise the payment of compensation. It follows that the various specific measures required to implement the provisions of European Union law concerned can hardly be regarded, where they are intended to apply to situations which fall outside the scope of those provisions, as referring to concepts used in those provisions or as adopting the same solutions as those adopted by those provisions, which it would be necessary to interpret in a uniform manner irrespective of the circumstances in which they are to apply.