Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Community law — Principles — Fundamental rights — Right to property — Restrictions — Whether permissible — Conditions — Minimum measures for the control of certain fish diseases — Directive 93/53 — Compensation for affected owners — None — Compatibility with the right to property — Fish owner's fault — Not relevant — (Council Directives 91/67, as amended by Annex A to Directive 93/54, and 93/53)

Summary

The fundamental rights protected by the Court, of which right to property is one, are not absolute rights but must be considered in relation to their social function. Consequently, restrictions may be imposed on the exercise of those rights, in particular in the context of a common organisation of the markets, provided that those restrictions in fact correspond to objectives of general interest pursued by the Community and do not constitute, with regard to the aim pursued, a disproportionate and intolerable interference, impairing the very substance of those rights.

Directive 93/53 introducing minimum Community measures for the control of certain fish diseases seeks to contribute to the completion of the internal market in aquaculture animals and products and forms part of a regime intended to introduce minimum Community measures for the control of certain fish diseases. Accordingly, the measures which that directive imposes are in conformity with objectives of general interest pursued by the Community.

Taking into account the objective sought, the minimum measures of immediate destruction and slaughter laid down by Directive 93/53 in order to control the diseases in List I in Annex A to Directive 91/67 concerning the animal health conditions governing the placing on the market of aquaculture animals and products, as amended by Directive 93/54, do not constitute, in the absence of compensation for affected owners, a disproportionate and intolerable interference impairing the very substance of the right to property.

First of all, the measures laid down by Directive 93/53 are urgent and are intended to guarantee that effective action is implemented as soon as the presence of a disease is confirmed and to eliminate any risk of the spread or survival of the pathogen.

Further, the measures referred to do not deprive farm owners of the use of their fish farms, but enable them to continue to carry on their activities there. In effect, the immediate destruction and slaughter of all the fish enable owners to restock the affected farms as soon as possible. Those measures therefore enable the resumption of the transportation and placing on the market in the Community of species of live fish susceptible to the diseases in Lists I and II in Annex A to Directive 91/67, with the result that all interested parties, including fish farm owners, may benefit as a result.

Finally, fish farmers carry on a business which carries commercial risks. As farmers, they can expect that a fish disease may break out at any moment and cause them loss. Such risk is inherent in the business of raising and selling livestock and is the consequence of a natural occurrence, so far as the diseases in both List I and List II in Annex A to Directive 91/67 are concerned.

As to the extent of any loss, by reason of their condition, fish which show clinical signs of disease have no marketable value. So far as concerns fish which have reached a commercial size and could have been marketed or processed for human consumption since they were not showing, when slaughtered, any clinical sign of disease, any loss eventually suffered by farmers by reason of the immediate slaughter of that kind of fish arises from the fact that they have been unable to choose the most advantageous time for their sale. In fact, because of the risk of their presenting clinical signs of disease in future, it is impossible to determine a more advantageous time for their sale. So far as all other types of fish are concerned, it is not possible to establish whether they have any marketable value either, because of the risk that in the future they will develop clinical signs of disease.

Admittedly, the Community legislature may consider, in the context of its broad discretion in the field of agricultural policy, that full or partial compensation is appropriate for owners of farms on which animals have been destroyed and slaughtered. Nonetheless, the existence, in Community law, of a general principle requiring compensation to be paid in all circumstances cannot be inferred from that fact.

Having regard to those same considerations, the measures for the immediate destruction and slaughter of fish implemented by a Member State in order to control List I and II diseases in the context of the application of Directive 93/53, which are, respectively, identical and similar to the minimum measures which the Community has laid down for List I diseases and which do not provide for compensation, are not incompatible with the fundamental right to property.

The fact that the outbreak of the disease is due or not due to the fish owner's fault has no bearing on the compatibility with the fundamental right to property of those national measures.

see paras 68, 78-83, 84-86, 93, 95, operative parts 1-3