Freistaat Bayern v Jan Blijdenstein.
Date: 2004-01-15
20. In Case C-271/00  Baten  [2002] ECR I-10489, paragraph 37, the Court held that the first paragraph of Article 1 of the Convention must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of   " civil matters"  encompasses an action under a right of recourse whereby a public body seeks from a person governed by private law recovery of sums paid by it by way of social assistance to the divorced spouse and the child of that person, provided that the basis and the detailed rules relating to the bringing of that action are governed by the rules of the ordinary law in regard to maintenance obligations. The Court added however that, where the action under a right of recourse is founded on provisions by which the legislature conferred on the public body a prerogative of its own, that action cannot be regarded as being brought in   " civil matters" .
24. It should be remembered that the Convention must be interpreted independently, by reference to its system and objectives (see, in particular, Case C-89/91  Shearson Lehman Hutton  [1993] ECR I-139, paragraph 13; Case C-295/95  Farrell  [1997] ECR I-1683, paragraphs 12 and 13; Case C-269/95  Benincasa  [1997] ECR I-3767, paragraph 12, and  Baten , cited above, paragraph 28).
25. In addition, the general principle in the system of the Convention is that the courts of the Contracting State in which the defendant is domiciled are to have jurisdiction, and that rules of jurisdiction which derogate from this general principle cannot give rise to an interpretation going beyond the cases expressly envisaged by the Convention (see, in particular,  Shearson Lehman Hutton , cited above,  paragraphs 14 and 16;  Benincasa , cited above, paragraph 13, and Case C-412/98  Group Josi  [2000] ECR I-5925, paragraph 49). This interpretation is even more compelling in relation to a rule of jurisdiction like that in Article 5(2) of the Convention, which enables the maintenance creditor to sue the defendant before the courts of the Contracting State in which the applicant is domiciled. Other than in the cases expressly provided for, the Convention appears hostile towards the attribution of jurisdiction to the courts of the applicant ' s domicile (see, to this effect,  Shearson Lehman Hutton , cited above, paragraph 17;  Benincasa , cited above, paragraph 14, and  Group Josi , cited above, paragraph 50).
29. That analysis is borne out by the arguments developed by the Court in paragraph 19 of the  Farrell  judgment, cited above, in which it held that the derogation provided for in Article 5(2) of the Convention is intended to offer the maintenance applicant, who is regarded as the weaker party in such proceedings, an alternative basis of jurisdiction. According to the Court, in adopting that approach, the drafters of the Convention considered that that specific objective had to prevail over the objective of the rule contained in the first paragraph of Article 2 of the Convention, which is to protect the defendant as the party who, being the person sued, is generally in a weaker position.
30. However, a public body which brings an action for recovery against a maintenance debtor is not in an inferior position with regard to the latter. Moreover, the maintenance creditor, whose maintenance has been covered by the payments of the public body, is no longer in a precarious financial position.
34. Therefore the answer to the question referred must be that Article 5(2) of the Convention must be interpreted as meaning that it cannot be relied on by a public body which seeks, in an action for recovery, reimbursement of sums paid under public law by way of an education grant to a maintenance creditor, to whose rights it is subrogated against the maintenance debtor.