Headnotes (non-official):
The Federal Constitutional Court only objects to the interpretation and application of provisions on jurisdiction if such interpretation and application are, under a reasonable appraisal of the fundamental ideas informing the Constitution, no longer comprehensible and thus obviously untenable.
These principles also apply to the provision on European Union jurisdiction under Article 267.3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (hereinafter, the “TFEU”). Thus, not every violation of the obligation to submit a case for a preliminary ruling violates the second sentence of Article 101.1 of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz - GG) at the same time.
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Summary:
I.
The constitutional complaint concerns a failure to submit a referral to the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) for a preliminary ruling.
The applicant operates a number of slaughterhouses and meat-cutting plants, selling cut and pre-wrapped meat from various German branches. It imports some of the products thus sold from Belgium. In 2008, German authorities found that some of the products had been incorrectly or not at all labelled regarding their net quantity. Since this violated German law, the local court sentenced the applicant to pay a fine. Against this, the applicant filed a legal complaint, arguing that it could not be fined since the rules applied by the court violated European law. It claimed that requiring a statement of the net quantity of products was a measure having equivalent effect to a quantitative restriction on exports which is prohibited under Article 34 TFEU, and that there was no applicable exception under Article 36 TFEU. According to the applicant, the question of whether the relevant German provision violated EU law had to be answered by a referral to the ECJ. The Higher Regional Court dismissed the appeal as manifestly unfounded.
The constitutional complaint challenges the decisions of the Regional Court and the Higher Regional Court, claiming a violation of the right to one’s lawful judge.
II.
The Federal Constitutional Court did not admit the constitutional complaint for decision. It found that the constitutional complaint was in part inadmissible and in any event unfounded. This decision was based on the following considerations:
The ECJ is the lawful judge within the meaning of the second sentence of Article 101.1 GG. According to its jurisprudence, a national court of last instance is obliged to refer a case to the ECJ for a preliminary ruling if a question of EU law is raised in a pending case, unless the court has determined that the question is not relevant to the decision, that the relevant provision of EU law has already been interpreted by the court, or that the correct application of EU law is so obvious as to leave no room for any reasonable doubt.
The Federal Constitutional Court, however, only objects to the interpretation and application of provisions on the distribution of jurisdiction if the interpretation and application are, under a reasonable appraisal of the fundamental ideas informing the Constitution, no longer comprehensible and thus obviously untenable. These principles also apply to the provision on Union jurisdiction under Article 267.3 TFEU. Thus, not every violation of the obligation to submit a case for a preliminary ruling violates the second sentence of Article 101.1 GG at the same time. The court that decides on a matter must therefore obtain sufficient knowledge about the substantive EU law. It must evaluate any relevant case-law of the ECJ and use it as orientation in its decisions.
Under the jurisprudence of the Federal Constitutional Court, it is not necessary to employ a stricter standard of review. Nor does EU law or the ECHR demand a standard of review that goes beyond ensuring that a decision was not made arbitrarily.
According to these standards, there was no violation of the second sentence of Article 101.1 GG. The Higher Regional Court did not handle Article 267.3 TFEU in an unacceptable way. It had no doubts as to the correct solution and clearly did not consciously deviate in its decision from the ECJ’s case-law.
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