Kofisa Italia Srl v Ministero delle Finanze, Servizio della Riscossione dei Tributi - Concessione Provincia di Genova - San Paolo Riscossioni Genova SpA.
Date: 2001-01-11
20 According to settled case-law, the procedure provided for in Article 177 of the Treaty is a means of cooperation between the Court of Justice and national courts. It follows that it is for the national courts alone which are seised of the case and are responsible for the judgment to be delivered to determine, in view of the special features of each case, both the need for a preliminary ruling in order to enable them to give their judgment and the relevance of the questions which they put to the Court (see Giloy, cited above, paragraph 20).
21 Consequently, where questions submitted by national courts concern the interpretation of a provision of Community law, the Court is, in principle, obliged to give a ruling. Neither the wording of Article 177 nor the aim of the procedure established by that article indicates that the framers of the Treaty intended to exclude from the jurisdiction of the Court requests for a preliminary ruling on a Community provision where the domestic law of a Member State refers to that Community provision in order to determine the rules applicable to a situation which is purely internal to that State (Giloy, cited above, paragraph 21).
22 A reference by a national court can be rejected only if it appears that the procedure laid down by Article 177 of the Treaty has been misused and a ruling from the Court elicited by means of a contrived dispute, or it is obvious that Community law cannot apply, either directly or indirectly, to the circumstances of the case referred to the Court (Giloy, cited above, paragraph 22).
32 Where, as in the case pending before the national court, in regulating internal situations, domestic legislation adopts the same solutions as those adopted in Community law so as to provide for one single procedure in comparable situations, it is clearly in the Community interest that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, provisions or concepts taken from Community law should be interpreted uniformly, irrespective of the circumstances in which they are to apply (Giloy, cited above, paragraph 28).
36 There is nothing in the wording of that provision to indicate that the appeal before the customs authority is a mandatory stage prior to lodging an appeal before the independent body.
43 The answer to the first question must therefore be that Article 243 of the Customs Code is to be interpreted as meaning that it is for national law to determine whether a trader must initially bring an appeal before the customs authority or whether he may appeal directly to the judicial authority.
Second question
46 However, that provision cannot restrict the right to effective judicial protection. The requirement of judicial control of any decision of a national authority reflects a general principle of Community law stemming from the constitutional traditions common to the Member States and enshrined in Articles 6 and 13 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Case 222/86 Unectef v Heylens [1987] ECR 4097, paragraph 14, and Case C-97/91 Oleificio Borelli v Commission [1992] ECR I-6313, paragraph 14).
47 In the exercise of their control, it is for the national courts, pursuant to the principle of cooperation laid down in Article 5 of the EC Treaty (now Article 10 EC), to ensure the legal protection which persons derive from the direct effect of provisions of Community law (Case C-213/89 Factortame and Others [1990] ECR I-2433, paragraph 19).