Criminal proceedings against Paul Denuit.
Date: 1997-05-29
20 In its judgment of 10 September 1996 in Case C-222/94 Commission v United Kingdom [1996] ECR I-4025 the Court has already examined the interpretation to be given to the term `jurisdiction' used in the phrase `broadcasters under [a Member State's] jurisdiction' appearing in the first indent of Article 2(1) of the Directive.
21 As the Court found in that judgment, the Directive contains no express definition of that phrase (paragraph 26).
22 After examining the wording of Article 2(1) of the Directive the Court found that the concept of jurisdiction of a Member State had to be understood as necessarily covering jurisdiction ratione personae over television broadcasters (paragraph 40).
23 A Member State's jurisdiction ratione personae over a television broadcaster could be based only on the broadcaster's connection to that Member State's legal system, which in substance overlapped with the concept of establishment as used in the first paragraph of Article 59 of the EC Treaty, the wording of which presupposed that the supplier and the recipient of a service were `established' in two different Member States (paragraph 42).
32 In paragraph 34 of its judgment of 10 September 1996 in Case C-11/95 Commission v Belgium [1996] ECR I-4155 the Court held that under the system established by the Directive for allocating obligations between the Member States from which broadcasts emanate and those which receive them, it is solely for the Member State from which television broadcasts emanate to monitor the application of the law of the originating Member State applying to such broadcasts and to ensure compliance with the Directive and that the receiving Member State is not authorized to exercise its own control in that regard.
33 That interpretation is borne out by the preamble to the Directive.  According to the 10th recital, all restrictions on freedom to provide broadcasting services to which the ninth recital refers, must be abolished under the Treaty. Furthermore, the 12th and 14th recitals provide that it is necessary and sufficient in this regard that all broadcasts comply with the law of the Member State from which they emanate and with the provisions of the Directive.  Finally, according to the 15th recital, the requirement that the originating Member State should verify that broadcasts comply with national law as coordinated by the Directive is sufficient under Community law to ensure free movement of broadcasts without secondary control on the same grounds in the receiving Member States (judgment in Case C-11/95 Commission v Belgium, cited above, paragraph 35).
34 Only in the circumstances provided for in the second sentence of Article 2(2), to which the second part of the 15th recital refers, may the receiving Member State exceptionally suspend retransmission of television broadcasts, on the conditions laid down by that provision. The Court went on to state that if a Member State considers that another Member State has failed to fulfil its obligations under the Directive, it may bring Treaty infringement proceedings under Article 170 of the EC Treaty or request the Commission itself to take action against that Member State under Article 169 of the EC Treaty (Commission v Belgium, cited above, paragraph 36).
35 In paragraph 37 of that same judgment, the Court also pointed out that it is settled case-law that a Member State cannot unilaterally adopt, on its own authority, corrective or protective measures designed to obviate any breach by another Member State of rules of Community law (see also the judgments in Joined Cases 90/63 and 91/63 Commission v Luxembourg and Belgium [1964] ECR 625, Case 232/78 Commission v France [1979] ECR 2729, paragraph 9, and Case C-5/94 Hedley Lomas [1996] ECR I-2553, paragraph 20).