Smaranda Bara and Others v Casa Naţională de Asigurări de Sănătate and Others.
Date: 2015-10-01
19. According to settled case-law, the Court may refuse to rule on a question referred for a preliminary ruling by a national court where it is quite obvious that the interpretation of EU law that is sought bears no relation to the actual facts of the main action or its object, 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 judgment in PreussenElektra , C‑379/98, EU:C:2001:160, paragraph 39 and the case-law cited).
22. The origin of that prohibition is to be found in Article 104 A of the EC Treaty (which became Article 102 EC), which was inserted in the EC Treaty by the Treaty of Maastricht. It was one of the provisions of the TFEU relating to the economic policy that intended to encourage the Member States to follow a sound budgetary policy, not allowing monetary financing of public deficits or privileged access by public authorities to the financial markets to lead to excessively high levels of debt or excessive Member State deficits (see, to that effect, judgment in Gauweiler and Others , C‑62/14, EU:C:2015:400, paragraph 100).
26. In that regard, it must be borne in mind that, according to the settled case-law of the Court, 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, 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 actual facts of the main action or its purpose, 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 (judgment in Fish Legal and Shirley , C‑279/12, EU:C:2013:853, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
29. In that regard, it must be held, on the basis of the information provided by the referring court, that the tax data transferred to the CNAS by the ANAF are personal data within the meaning of Article 2(a) of the directive, since they are ‘information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person’ (judgment in Satakunnan Markkinapörssi and Satamedia , C‑73/07, EU:C:2008:727, paragraph 35). Both the transfer of the data by the ANAF, the body responsible for the management of the database in which they are held, and their subsequent processing by the CNAS therefore constitute ‘processing of personal data’ within the meaning of Article 2(b) of the directive (see, to that effect, inter alia, judgments in Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others , C‑465/00, C‑138/01 and C‑139/01, EU:C:2003:294, paragraph 64, and Huber , C‑524/06, EU:C:2008:724, paragraph 43).
30. In accordance with the provisions of Chapter II of Directive 95/46, entitled ‘General rules on the lawfulness of the processing of personal data’, subject to the exceptions permitted under Article 13 of that directive, all processing of personal data must comply, first, with the principles relating to data quality set out in Article 6 of the directive and, secondly, with one of the criteria for making data processing legitimate listed in Article 7 of the directive (judgments in Österreichischer Rundfunk and Others , C‑465/00, C‑138/01 and C‑139/01, EU:C:2003:294, paragraph 65; Huber , C‑524/06, EU:C:2008:724, paragraph 48; and ASNEF and FECEMD , C‑468/10 and C‑469/10, EU:C:2011:777, paragraph 26).
34. It follows that the requirement of fair processing of personal data laid down in Article 6 of Directive 95/46 requires a public administrative body to inform the data subjects of the transfer of those data to another public administrative body for the purpose of their processing by the latter in its capacity as recipient of those data.
39. It is necessary to examine whether Article 13 of the directive applies to that failure to inform the data subjects. It is apparent from Article 13(1)(e) and (f) that Member States may restrict the scope of the obligations and rights provided for in Article 10 of the same directive when such a restriction constitutes a necessary measure to safeguard ‘an important economic or financial interest of a Member State […], including monetary, budgetary and taxation matters’ or ‘a monitoring, inspection or regulatory function connected, even occasionally, with the exercise of official authority in cases referred to in (c), (d) and (e)’. Nevertheless, Article 13 expressly requires that such restrictions are imposed by legislative measures.