P v Q.
Date: 2015-11-19
31. It must be found, first, that the present reference for a preliminary ruling concerns the interpretation of Regulation No 2201/2003, which was adopted in particular on the basis of Article 61(c) EC, now Article 67 TFEU, which is in Title V of Part Three of the FEU Treaty, relating to the area of freedom, security and justice, so that the reference falls within the scope of the urgent preliminary ruling procedure defined in Article 107 of the Rules of Procedure.
35. It should be recalled that, as stated in recital 21 in its preamble, that regulation is founded on the idea that the recognition and enforcement of judgments given in a Member State should be based on the principle of mutual trust and the grounds for non-recognition should be kept to the minimum required.
36. In that system, Article 23 of Regulation No 2201/2003, which sets out the grounds on which recognition of a judgment in matters of parental responsibility may be refused, must be interpreted strictly, in so far as it is an obstacle to the attainment of one of the fundamental objectives of that regulation, as recalled in the preceding paragraph of this judgment.
37. While it is not for the Court to define the content of the public policy of a Member State, it is none the less required to review the limits within which the courts of a Member State may have recourse to that concept for the purpose of declining to recognise a judgment delivered in another Member State (see, by analogy, judgment in Diageo Brands , C‑681/13, EU:C:2015:471, paragraph 42).
39. Recourse to the public policy rule in Article 23(a) of that regulation should thus come into consideration only where, taking into account the best interests of the child, recognition of the judgment given in another Member State would be at variance to an unacceptable degree with the legal order of the State in which recognition is sought, in that it would infringe a fundamental principle. In order to comply with the prohibition laid down in Article 26 of the regulation of any review of the substance of a judgment given in another Member State, the infringement would have to constitute a manifest breach, having regard to the best interests of the child, of a rule of law regarded as essential in the legal order of the State in which recognition is sought or of a right recognised as being fundamental within that legal order (see, by analogy, judgment in Diageo Brands , C‑681/13, EU:C:2015:471, paragraph 44).
44. However, it must be noted that Article 15 of Regulation No 2201/2003, which is in Chapter II of the regulation, entitled ‘Jurisdiction’, supplements the rules of jurisdiction in Articles 8 to 14 of that chapter by introducing a means of cooperation by which a court of a Member State which has jurisdiction to hear the case under one of those rules may, by way of exception, transfer it to a court of another Member State which is better placed to hear the case.
45. It follows that, as the Advocate General observes in point 71 of his view, an alleged breach of Article 15 of that regulation by a court of a Member State does not allow a court of another Member State to review the jurisdiction of that court, despite the fact that the prohibition in Article 24 of the regulation does not refer expressly to Article 15.
46. Moreover, it must be recalled that the court of the State in which recognition is sought cannot, without calling into question the purpose of Regulation No 2201/2003, refuse to recognise a judgment from another Member State solely on the ground that it considers that national or EU law was misapplied in that judgment.
49. Moreover, that article provides in paragraph 8 for an autonomous procedure under which the possible problem of conflicting judgments in the matter may be resolved (see, to that effect, judgments in Rinau , C‑195/08 PPU, EU:C:2008:406, paragraph 63, and Povse , C‑211/10 PPU, EU:C:2010:400, paragraph 56).
52. It must, however, be recalled that, before making that judgment, the court which has jurisdiction must take into consideration the reasons for the decision of non-return and the evidence on which it is based (judgment in Povse , C‑211/10 PPU, EU:C:2010:400, paragraph 59).