Unitrading Ltd v Staatssecretaris van Financiën.
Date: 2014-10-23
20. In that regard, it must be borne in mind that, according to the Court’s settled case-law, if the judicial review guaranteed by Article 47 of the Charter is to be effective, on the one hand, the person concerned must be able to ascertain the reasons upon which the decision taken in relation to him is based, either by reading the decision itself or by requesting and obtaining notification of those reasons, so as to make it possible for him to defend his rights in the best possible conditions and to decide, with full knowledge of the relevant facts, whether there is any point in his applying to the court with jurisdiction. On the other, the court with jurisdiction must have the power to require the authority concerned to provide that information, in order to put that court fully in a position in which it may carry out the review of the lawfulness of the national decision in question (see to that effect, judgment in ZZ , EU:C:2013:363, paragraph 53 and the case-law cited).
23. In those circumstances, the results of the examinations provided by the American laboratory merely constitute evidence which both the customs authorities and the Netherlands courts, also taking account of the arguments and evidence submitted by Unitrading, were able to regard as adequate to establish the true origin of the goods. As the Commission has rightly pointed out, given that there is no legislation at EU level governing the concept of proof, any type of evidence admissible under the procedural law of the Member States in proceedings similar to those laid down in Article 243 of the Customs Code is in principle admissible (judgment in Sony Supply Chain Solutions (Europe) , C‑153/10, EU:C:2011:224, paragraph 41 and the case‑law cited).
25. Nor does it appear that the right to effective judicial protection has been infringed in the dispute in the main proceedings, given that the courts seised in turn do not appear to be bound, under the national procedural law, by the assessment of the facts made and, in particular, the type of evidence used by the customs authority (see, to that effect, judgment in Wilson , C‑506/04, EU:C:2006:587, paragraph 61).
27. Since Article 245 of the Customs Code provides, in that context, that the provisions for the implementation of the appeals procedure provided for in Article 243 of that code are to be determined by the Member States, it must be held that it is for the domestic legal system of each Member State to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing those actions, provided that such rules are not less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and that they do not render in practice impossible or excessively difficult the exercise of rights conferred by Community law (principle of effectiveness). Those considerations also apply with regard, specifically, to evidential rules (see, to that effect, judgment in Direct Parcel Distribution Belgium , C‑264/08, EU:C:2010:43, paragraphs 33 and 34 and the case-law cited).
28. In order to ensure compliance with the principle of effectiveness, if the national court finds that the fact of requiring the person liable for the customs debt to prove the place of origin of the goods declared, in that the onus is on him to refute the relevance of indirect evidence used by the customs authorities, is likely to make it impossible or excessively difficult for such evidence to be produced, since inter alia that evidence relates to data which the person liable could not possess, it is required to use all procedures available to it under national law, including that of ordering the necessary measures of inquiry (see, to that effect, judgment in Direct Parcel Distribution Belgium , EU:C:2010:43, paragraph 35 and the case-law cited).