Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1 Procedure - Application initiating proceedings - Procedural requirements - Identification of the subject-matter of the dispute - Summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based - Application seeking compensation for damage caused by a Community institution - Minimum requirements

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 19, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(1)(c))

2 Non-contractual liability - Subject-matter - Acts of the Community institutions or acts of servants of the Community - Definition - Instruments of primary Community law - Not covered - Application for damages arising from the Single European Act - Inadmissible

(EC Treaty, Arts 178 and 215, second para.)

3 Non-contractual liability - Breach by the Community institutions of a legal obligation to act - Demise of the profession of customs agent as a result of the Single European Act - Obligation of the institutions to act - None - Obligation of the Community to compensate members of the profession - None

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para.)

4 Non-contractual liability - Conditions - Legislative acts involving economic policy decisions - Sufficiently clear breach of a higher-ranking rule of law for the protection of individuals - Insufficiency of the Community's action to assist customs agents as a profession when the single market was established - Breach of the principle of the protection of vested rights - None

(EC Treaty, Art. 215, second para.)

5 Community law - Principles - Protection of legitimate expectations - Conditions

6 Community law - Principles - Fundamental rights - Freedom to pursue a trade or profession - Restrictions introduced in the course of completing the internal market - Whether permissible

Summary

7 Under the first paragraph of Article 19 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, and under Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, all applications are to indicate the subject-matter of the dispute and contain a brief statement of the grounds on which the application is based. That statement must be sufficiently clear and precise to enable the defendant to prepare its defence and the Court to rule on the application, if necessary, without any further information. In order to guarantee legal certainty and sound administration of justice it is necessary, for an action to be admissible, that the basic legal and factual particulars relied on be indicated, at least in summary form, coherently and intelligibly in the application itself.

In order to satisfy those requirements, an application seeking compensation for damage caused by a Community institution must state the evidence from which the conduct which the applicant alleges against the institution can be identified, the reasons for which the applicant considers that there is a causal link between the conduct and the damage it claims to have suffered, and the nature and extent of that damage.

8 A claim is inadmissible where it seeks to impute liability to the Community for damage whose source is to be found in the Single European Act, which is an instrument of primary Community law and is thus neither an act of the Community institutions nor an act of the servants of the Community in the performance of their duties and cannot, therefore, give rise to non-contractual liability on the part of the Community.

Moreover, under the hierarchy of rules, the provisions of Article 178 and the second paragraph of Article 215 of the Treaty, which govern the non-contractual liability of the Community and are primary law, cannot be brought to bear on instruments belonging to an equivalent level, such as the provisions of the Single European Act, where this is not expressly provided for.

9 Omissions by the Community institutions give rise to the non-contractual liability of the Community only where the institutions have infringed a legal obligation to act under a provision of Community law.

In the case of the demise of the profession of intra-Community customs agent as a result of the Single European Act, there is no obligation under the Single European Act itself or under any other formal rule of written Community law, nor under any general principle of law, by virtue of which the Community would be obliged to compensate a person who has been subject to a measure expropriating his property or restricting his freedom to enjoy his right to property since the Community cannot be obliged to make good damage caused by acts which cannot be imputed to it. Consequently the Community is not obliged to compensate the members of this profession.

However, the possibility cannot be excluded that an obligation to provide compensation might, in appropriate circumstances, arise under the domestic law of the Member State on whose territory the intra-Community customs agent carried out his activities.

10 The non-contractual liability of the Community for damage caused, either by legislative acts adopted by its institutions, or by unlawful failure to adopt such acts, can be incurred only if there has been a breach of a higher-ranking rule of law for the protection of individuals. Moreover, if the institution has adopted or failed to adopt a legislative act in the exercise of a broad discretion, the Community cannot be rendered liable unless the breach is clear, that is to say, of a manifest and serious nature.

Any insufficiency of the Community's action to assist the profession of customs agents when the single market was established, if the institutions are in breach of an obligation to act, is not such as to give rise to the liability of the Community by reason of the violation of the principle of vested rights, since the institutions have, when adopting acts of a legislative nature which concern economic policy decisions, a broad discretion in deciding what action to take.

In that connection, Regulation No 3632/85 defining the conditions under which a person may be permitted to make a customs declaration, which does not define or clarify, in Community law, the pursuit of the profession of customs agent, and is confined to harmonising the conditions under which a person is entitled to make a customs declaration, did not therefore create for customs agents a clear advantage which could be defined as a vested right. Furthermore, even if Regulation No 3632/85 did in practice grant a specific advantage to the professional category of customs agents, the members of that profession are still not justified in claiming a vested right in the maintenance of that advantage, since the Community institutions are entitled to adapt rules and regulations to the necessary developments which they must undergo and, therefore, traders cannot claim a vested right in the maintenance of an advantage which they obtained from the rules in issue and which they enjoyed at a given time.

11 The right to rely on the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations extends to any individual who is in a situation in which it is apparent that the Community administration has led him to entertain reasonable expectations. On the other hand, a person may not plead a breach of that principle unless the administration has given him precise assurances.

12 The freedom to pursue a trade or profession forms part of the general principles of Community law, the observance of which the Community judicature ensures. However, that principle does not constitute an unfettered prerogative, but must be viewed in the light of its social function. Consequently, the freedom to pursue a trade or profession may be restricted, provided that those restrictions correspond to objectives of general interest pursued by the Community and that they do not constitute a disproportionate and intolerable interference which would affect the very substance of the right so guaranteed.

In the light of the essential aim pursued, the completion of the internal market, which is an objective of evident general interest, does not entail any undue limitation on the exercise of the fundamental right in question.