East Sussex County Council v Information Commissioner and Others.
Date: 2015-10-06
42. In the second place, as regards the second condition laid down in Article 5(2) of Directive 2003/4, namely that the total amount of the charge provided for in that provision must not exceed a reasonable amount, it follows from the Court’s case-law on Article 5 of Directive 90/313, which remains of relevance for the application of Article 5(2)  of Directive 2003/4, that any interpretation of the expression ‘reasonable amount’ that may have a deterrent effect on persons wishing to obtain information or that may restrict their right of access to information must be rejected (see, to that effect, judgment in Commission  v Germany , C‑217/97, EU:C:1999:395, paragraph 47).
48. On this point, it must be recalled that it is settled case-law that the procedure established by Article 267 TFEU is an instrument of cooperation between the Court of Justice and the national courts, in which questions on the interpretation of EU law referred by a national court, in the factual and legislative context which that court is responsible for defining and the accuracy of which is not a matter for the Court to determine, enjoy a presumption of relevance. 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 EU law that is sought bears no relation to the facts or object of the main proceedings, where the problem is hypothetical, or where the Court does not have before it the factual or legal material necessary to give a useful answer to the questions submitted to it (see, to that effect, judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , C‑279/12, EU:C:2013:853, paragraphs 29 and 30).
52. According to settled case-law, where, in the absence of EU rules governing the matter, it is for the legal system of each Member State to designate the courts and tribunals having jurisdiction and to lay down the detailed procedural rules governing actions for safeguarding rights which individuals derive from EU law, those detailed rules must not be less favourable than those governing similar domestic actions (principle of equivalence) and must not make it impossible in practice or excessively difficult to exercise rights conferred by EU law (principle of effectiveness) (judgment in Gruber , C‑570/13, EU:C:2015:231, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited). As far as the latter principle is concerned, it should also be recalled that Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union enshrines the right to an effective remedy before an impartial tribunal (see, to that effect, judgment in Unibet , C‑432/05, EU:C:2007:163, paragraph 37 and the case-law cited).
56. It should be recalled in this connection that the EU legislature, in adopting Directive 2003/4, intended to ensure the compatibility of EU law with the Aarhus Convention by providing for a general scheme to ensure that any natural or legal person in a Member State has a right of access to environmental information held by or on behalf of public authorities, without that person having to state an interest (judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , C‑279/12, EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 36 and the case-law cited). The existence of effective administrative and judicial review of the making of a charge for supplying such information is intrinsically linked to the realisation of that objective. F urthermore, that review must necessarily relate to whether the public authority has complied with the two conditions in Article 5(2) of that directive, identified in paragraph 29 above.
58. In this respect, the Court has held that the exercise of the rights conferred by EU law is not made impossible in practice or excessively difficult merely by the fact that a procedure for the judicial review of decisions of the administrative authorities does not allow complete review of those decisions. However, also according to that case-law, any national judicial review procedure must none the less enable the court or tribunal hearing an application for annulment of such a decision to apply effectively the relevant principles and rules of EU law when reviewing the lawfulness of the decision (see, to that effect, judgments in Upjohn , C‑120/97, EU:C:1999:14, paragraphs 30, 35 and 36, and HLH Warenvertrieb and Orthica , C‑211/03, C‑299/03 and C‑316/03 to C‑318/03, EU:C:2005:370, paragraphs 75 to 77). Judicial review that is limited as regards the assessment of certain questions of fact is thus compatible with EU law, on condition that it enables the court or tribunal hearing an application for annulment of such a decision to apply effectively the relevant principles and rules of EU law when reviewing the lawfulness of the decision (see, to that effect, judgment in HLH Warenvertrieb and Orthica , C‑211/03, C‑299/03 and C‑316/03 to C‑318/03, EU:C:2005:370, paragraph 79).