State Immunity, Comity and the Question of Legal Standing of a Third Country before the CJEU: The Opinion of AG Hogan in Case C‑872/19 P Venezuela v Council

 

 

Eva Kassoti, Senior Researcher, CLEER academic co-ordinator, T.M.C. Asser Institute. E-mail: E.Kassoti@asser.nl

 

In his Opinion delivered on 20 February 2021, A.G. Hogan tackled an important procedural question: Does a third State have legal standing to challenge EU acts before the CJEU? The question at bar is significant not only because the Court has never addressed it directly before in the context of sanctions, but also because it involves enquiring into the principles that mediate the relationship between the EU legal system and other subjects of international law.

 

The case is an appeal against the General Court’s judgment of 20 September 2019, in which that Court was asked to rule on whether Venezuela could challenge a series of restrictive measures prohibiting the provision of arms, military as well as surveillance equipment to any natural or legal person, entity or body in, or for use in, Venezuela.

 

Answering this question necessitates examining whether the conditions of Art. 263(4) TFEU (on standing to bring direct actions for annulment of EU law, if the challenger is not a Member State or EU entity) to have been met. In casu, the answer is contingent on examining whether Venezuela is a legal person that is directly and individually concerned by the measures at hand, or, in the case that the measures are considered as regulatory acts, it is sufficient to show that these measures are of direct concern to Venezuela and do not entail implementing measures. The General Court found that Venezuela was not directly concerned by those measures, and thus, that it lacked standing under Art. 263(4) TFEU – without however addressing the question of whether Venezuela is a legal person within the meaning of the same provision.

 

In his Opinion, the AG focused on two main issues in order to answer the question of legal standing: (i) whether Venezuela is a legal person within the meaning of 263(4) TFEU; (ii) whether Venezuela is directly concerned by the measures in question within the meaning of 263(4) TFEU. The A.G. proposed that the CJEU answers both questions to the affirmative. If the Court follows the A.G.’s line, this could reinforce the image of the EU as a global actor committed to the rule of law and to effective judicial protection by recognising in essence that third States have a right to challenge EU law measures them before EU courts, provided that the conditions set out in Art. 263(4) TFEU are satisfied – even in the absence of reciprocity. This blogpost focuses on the AG’s analysis of the question of ‘legal personhood’ as the question of direct concern has been discussed elsewhere.

 

Is Venezuela a legal person within the meaning of Art. 263(4) TFEU?

 

According to the A.G., both international and EU law considerations buttress the finding that Venezuela should be considered as a legal person for the purposes of Art. 263(4) TFEU.

 

International Law Considerations

In relation to the international law arguments supporting this finding, the A.G. (correctly) rejected the Council’s assertion that Venezuela is barred from bringing a suit before the CJEU on the basis of the doctrine of State immunity.  The AG argued that the law of immunities cannot limit the legal standing of Venezuela since this action is brought by Venezuela and not against Venezuela. Indeed, State immunity under international law is aimed at facilitating the performance of public functions by the State and its representatives by preventing actions being brought against them before foreign courts. It does not however imply that third States are barred themselves from appearing as claimants before foreign courts – as Art. 8 of the 2004 UN Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and their Property makes abundantly clear.

 

However, the rest of his line of argumentation on the basis of international law seems rather weak and convoluted. The A.G. argued that the international law principle of comity should inform the interpretation of what constitutes a legal person for the purposes of Art. 263(4) TFEU and that, on the basis of comity, the CJEU should be open to challenges brought by States in their sovereign capacity as international legal persons. It is interesting to note at this juncture that if the Court chooses to take up this point it would be the first that it will rule directly on the question of whether international legal personality implies that an entity is a ‘legal person’ also for the purposes of an action of annulment. This argument has been expressly made before by Front Polisario, a national liberation movement with (arguably) a measure of international legal personality, in the context of the Front Polisario v Council case, but the General Court eschewed engagement therewith and ruled on Polisario’s legal personality solely from the standpoint of EU law.

 

However, from an international law point of view, the argument made by the A.G. is rather unconvincing. In fact, there seems to be no rule of customary international law requiring one State to allow another State to bring suit in its courts. Rather, comity is a domestic law doctrine (that has been mainly employed by US courts) under which deference is afforded to foreign states to bring suits before domestic courts as plaintiffs. The practice relied on by the AG (the Banco National de Cuba v Sabbatino judgment by the US Supreme Court) as well as a survey of other relevant case-law (the Sapphire; the Hilton v Guyot; the Santissima Trinidad – all judgments by the US Supreme Court) attest to the domestic law pedigree of the principle of comity. The AG failed to show how this domestic law principle has entered the corpus of international law. Overall, great caution needs to be exercised in using domestic cases in order to make propositions about general international law. The very notion of ‘comity’ in international law is linked to practices of a discretionary character; this runs counter to the modern understanding of customary international law “as evidence of a general practice accepted as law” (Art. 38(1)(b) ICJ Statute).

 

The international law blunder aside, the question arises as to whether there are good reasons to adopt the relevant doctrine as a matter of EU law. While the principle of comity is distinct from international law, it undoubtedly remains an internationally oriented principle that is important in shaping a State’s relations with the outside world. Showing deference to third States as litigants before the CJEU would certainly be within the spirit of Art. 3(5) and 21 TEU and it would consolidate the external projection of the EU as a confident and internationally engaged polity committed to the ethos of the rule of law.

 

EU Law considerations

 

The A.G. also relied on a number of EU law precedents where the CJEU had (en passant) accepted that third States have legal standing to bring an action for annulment under Art. 263(4) TFEU – although, admittedly, the context in which these rulings were made was not that of restrictive measures as is the present one (Cambodia and CRF v Commission, para. 51; Poland v Commission, paras. 51,52; Switzerland v Commission, para. 22). In the context of restrictive measures, the A.G. found the Court’s judgment in PKK and NKK v Council of particular importance since it implies that, even in the absence of legal personality, an entity that is directly and individually affected by restrictive measures must have access to EU courts in order to protect its rights. On the basis of these EU law precedents and taking into account that respect for the rule of law and the principle of effective judicial protection are core EU law principles, the A.G. concluded that Venezuela must be regarded as a legal person within the meaning of Art. 263(4) TFEU – even in the absence of reciprocity since “respect for the rule of law and the principle of effective judicial protection is not based on any notion of reciprocity and they cannot be traded or compromised in diplomatic exchanges or made subject to reciprocal treaty obligations.”

 

This part of the A.G.’s Opinion is particularly convincing – especially in the light of the Court’s relevant case-law. In PKK and NKK v Council, the Court emphasised that the procedural rules governing the admissibility of an action for annulment must be read with a view to “avoiding excessive formalism” – something that would amount to denying to an entity against which restrictive measures have been taken the possibility of applying for annulment. One may add that it would at least raise an eyebrow if the Court denied Venezuela - a sovereign State and as such, the example par excellence of an international legal person - capacity to bring annulment proceedings, while it has recognised such capacity for entities such as the Western Saharan Front Polisario and the Sri Lankan Liberation of Tigers of Tamil Eelan.

 

While one may concede that there are good reasons to adopt the A.G.’s approach to legal personhood, the question arises as to whether there may be far-reaching implications for the conduct of the EU’s foreign relations. Would allowing third States to challenge EU law measures before the CJEU open the floodgates for a number of politically charged questions of recognition of entities (such as Kosovo and Palestine) to be decided by the Court? This fear seems to be exaggerated. As the doctrine of comity has been applied by US courts, exceptions are accepted in case of States not recognised by the US. This would ensure that, while the CJEU shows a great degree of openness to review measures affecting third States, it would not be used to make determinations regarding (often politically charged) issues of recognition.

 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 24

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Same-Sex Marriage: The EU is Lagging Behind

Alina Tryfonidou, Associate Professor in EU Law, School of Law, University of Reading

Last Friday, in its much-awaited ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges, the US Supreme Court held that same-sex couples derive from the US Constitution the fundamental right to marry and, for this reason, invalidated State laws which impose a ban on such marriages. The Supreme Court, also, held that marriages lawfully performed in one US State must be fully recognised in all other US States. This is, without a doubt, an historical ruling of immense symbolic and practical importance, since it means that all LGB US citizens are now able to marry a same-sex partner, and to be recognised, together with the latter, as a married couple everywhere in the US.

Given that the first country in the world that opened registered partnerships to same-sex couples was Denmark, in 1989, and that the first country that opened marriage to same-sex couples was the Netherlands, in 2001, one would have expected the EU to be a pioneer in matters regarding the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. Nonetheless, the EU’s stance on these matters and on the protection of the rights of same-sex couples remains disappointingly aloof.

This piece will focus on same-sex marriage and shall seek to examine the EU’s position towards a) same-sex marriage in situations confined within a single Member State; and b) the cross-border legal recognition of same-sex marriages (i.e. when EU citizens who are married to a person of the same sex move to another Member State).

Can the EU Require Member States to Open Marriage to Same-Sex Couples?

The answer is simple and it is ‘no’, at least as things stand at the moment. In its judgment in Römer, the Court stressed that ‘as European Union law stands at present, legislation on the marital status of persons falls within the competence of the Member States’. Moreover, the drafters of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights seemed to share the same view, when in the Explanations Relating to the Charter of Fundamental Rights, it was pointed out that the Charter Article providing the right to marry (Article 9) ‘neither prohibits nor imposes the granting of the status of marriage to unions between people of the same sex’.

Because matters that fall within the ambit of family law are (usually) matters for which there is no European consensus and for which it is believed that each Member State should be left alone to make its own choices, family law is an area in which the EU has no competence to legislate. Thus, it is the Member States that can decide in situations that fall within their jurisdiction, who can marry whom, the requirements for divorce, adoption issues, the regulation of assisted reproduction, and any other issues falling within the ambit of family law. The legal recognition of same-sex relationships is no exception to this, and, hence, it is up to each Member State to decide whether it will allow in its territory two persons of the same sex to marry. This has resulted in an EU which is divided between the (mostly northern and western) Member States which have opened marriage to same-sex couples,[i] and the (mostly central and eastern) Member States which have not,[ii] with some Member States having a constitutional ban on opening marriage to same-sex couples.[iii]

Does the EU Require Member States to Recognise Same-Sex Marriages Lawfully Performed In Another Member State?

Even when the EU does not have the competence to make legislation in a certain area, this does not mean that the Member States have a carte blanche when exercising their powers in that field. This is because Member States must ensure that when they take action in an area which falls to be regulated exclusively by them, they comply with their obligations under EU law.

The next important question, therefore, is what happens to married same-sex couples comprised of (at least) one Union citizen, who move between Member States? If they move to a Member State which has not opened same-sex marriage to its own nationals, do they lose their status as a married couple and, with it, the automatic EU law right to move and reside to the host State together as a couple? Also, once they are within that State’s territory, are they not treated as a married couple for all legal purposes and, hence, are they refused benefits and advantages that are only available to married couples? Or does EU law require Member States which do not offer the option of marriage to same-sex couples in their own territory, to, nonetheless, recognise the status of same-sex couples who lawfully contracted their marriage in another Member State? The answer to this question is not entirely clear.

The reason behind this uncertainty is that the EU legislation which makes provision for the rights (including family reunification rights) of mobile Union citizens, uses the gender- and sexual orientation-neutral term ‘spouse’, without clarifying that this term – at least in this context – refers to both same-sex and opposite-sex spouses. This has proved problematic, because it has been read by some Member States as a licence to refuse to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other Member States.

More specifically, Directive 2004/38, which lays down the conditions governing the exercise of the right of Union citizens and their family members to move and reside in the territory of another Member State, provides, in its Article 2(2)(a), that ‘family member’ for the purposes of this Directive means, inter alia, ‘the spouse’, and, thus, Union citizens can be accompanied or joined by their ‘spouse’ in the host Member State. One would have thought that a marriage – whether comprised of persons of the same or the opposite sex – lawfully contracted in a Member State, would be considered valid in all other Member States. After all, Recital 31 of the Directive, provides that ‘In accordance with the prohibition of discrimination contained in the Charter, Member States should implement this Directive without discrimination between the beneficiaries of this Directive on grounds such as … sexual orientation’. This, on its own, should suffice for making it clear to the Member States that when implementing the Directive, they must ensure that they do not act in a way which is (directly) discriminatory on the ground of sexual orientation, and, thus, just as they recognise (all) opposite-sex marriages lawfully performed in other Member States they must, also, recognise (all) such same-sex marriages.

In any event, refusing to an LGB Union citizen the right to be joined or accompanied in the host Member State by his or her same-sex spouse can, without a doubt, constitute an obstacle to that person’s fundamental right to move and reside in the territory of another Member State, which stems from the free movement provisions of the FEU Treaty. The rationale of the EU legislature – and the ECJ – for granting family reunification rights to mobile Union citizens, has always been that the refusal of such rights will give rise to a restriction on the exercise of free movement rights (Singh; Carpenter; Metock). It goes without saying that such a restriction will emerge, whether the spouse of a Union citizen is of the same or the opposite sex and hence it appears entirely arbitrary to treat same-sex couples differently from opposite-sex couples. Although the ECJ has not, yet, had the opportunity to rule on whether the refusal of the host State to admit within its territory the same-sex spouse of a mobile Union citizen amounts to a breach of the free movement provisions of the Treaty, a case is currently pending before it (Cocaj), where one of the questions referred is whether ‘registered partnerships’ under Article 2(2)(b) of Directive 2004/38, include same-sex registered partnerships.

 

Once it is found that the refusal to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other Member States amounts to an obstacle to free movement, the onus will then fall on the recalcitrant Member State to justify its refusal. It seems, nonetheless, that it will be unable to rely on the public policy exception, which is one of the Treaty derogations from the free movement provisions, and this will be so for two reasons. Firstly, since it is engaging in a block refusal to recognise same-sex marriages contracted elsewhere, the requirement laid down in Article 27 of Directive 2004/38, that the measure which limits the exercise of free movement rights is based on the personal conduct of the individual concerned, will not be satisfied. Secondly, national measures can be justified under the Treaty derogations only if they are compatible with fundamental human rights protected under EU law (ERT) and, as will be explained below, a refusal to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other Member States seems to amount to a breach of Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and, in particular, the prohibition of discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, and of the right to human dignity.

A restriction on the exercise of free movement rights is, also, likely to emerge from the simple fact that a same-sex married couple will lose its status or will have its status converted into a ‘lesser’ one (namely, registered partnership), something which will, obviously, have important (negative) implications once the couple is admitted into the territory of the host State. Apart from the hurt feelings and uncertainty that such a loss or ‘downgrading’ of status will cause, it shall, also, give rise to a substantial degree of (practical) inconvenience which, in turn, can lead to an obstacle to the exercise of free movement rights, since the couple – although lawfully married in another Member State – will not be entitled to benefits and advantages reserved to married couples.[iv] For instance, hospital visitation rights or pensions, and tax, social or other advantages, which, under national law, are only available to married couples, will not be granted to the spouses, since in the eyes of the law of the host State, they are not married.

Apart from Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights (see the analysis below) and/or the free movement provisions of the Treaty, some relief in this context can, also, be offered via Directive 2000/78, which prohibits discrimination on, inter alia, the ground of sexual orientation, in the areas of employment, occupation and vocational training. In particular – and applying in this context the principles established in case-law involving stagnant Union citizens (Maruko; Römer; Hay) – same-sex spouses who move to another Member State where they are ‘downgraded’ to registered partners, can rely on the Directive to require the host State to extend to them benefits reserved to opposite-sex spouses, provided that the benefits relate to employment, occupation or vocational training, and provided that the host State considers the two categories of couples (opposite-sex spouses and same-sex registered partners) to be in a comparable situation for the purposes of the claimed benefit. Nonetheless, this is, only, a partial solution to the problem, since it will not offer any remedy to same-sex spouses who move to Member States which do not grant any legal recognition to same-sex relationships or Member States which do not consider – for the specific benefit that is claimed or more generally – opposite-sex spouses to be in a comparable situation with same-sex registered partners. Furthermore, it will not offer any remedy in situations where the claimed benefit or advantage does not relate to employment, occupation or vocational training.

The refusal of the host Member State to recognise same-sex marriages contracted in other Member States of the EU is, also, in breach of fundamental (human) rights that are protected under the Charter and/or as general principles of EU law.

Article 21(1) of the Charter, provides that ‘Any discrimination based on any ground such as … sexual orientation shall be prohibited’. Since all Member States automatically recognise (opposite-sex) marriages contracted in other Member States, a refusal to recognise same-sex marriages, amounts to (direct) discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation. In its Article 51(1), the Charter provides that its provisions are addressed ‘to the Member States only when they are implementing Union law’. Recent ECJ rulings have interpreted this broadly, by noting that ‘The applicability of European Union law entails applicability of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Charter’ (Fransson). Accordingly, it would seem that situations which involve measures that lead to an obstacle to the exercise of EU free movement rights can fall within the scope of the Charter. Union citizens can, therefore, rely on Article 21 of the Charter in order to require the Member State to which they move to recognise their same-sex marriage and to admit them within its territory and treat them as a married couple. Of course, Member States may wish to try to justify this instance of differential treatment (e.g. on the need to protect the traditional notion of marriage as a union between a man and a woman), but given that – as made clear in the ECHR context – only ‘particularly serious reasons’ can justify discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation (Dudgeon v. United Kingdom; Smith & Grady v. United Kingdom; Karner v. Austria), they will be faced with an uphill struggle, and, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to successfully rely on a justification.

Stripping a same-sex married couple of its legal status seems to be, also, a breach of the right to human dignity of the persons comprising it, which is protected under Article 1 of the Charter and which is, also, a general principle of EU law.[v] Forming intimate relationships with other individuals and choosing to formalise such relationships is an exercise of personal autonomy, which is an aspect of the dignity of every human being. The EU, by prohibiting discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation, (tacitly) admits the equal worth of all individuals irrespective of their sexual orientation, and, with it, the equal moral worth of opposite-sex and same-sex relationships. When a Member State refuses to give effect to the choices of individuals as regards their same-sex relationships and the legal status attached to them, it treats such relationships differently from opposite-sex relationships and it treats them as inferior – and as not having the same moral worth – as the latter. Accordingly, it fails to respect the autonomy and dignity of the individuals who have formed and formalised such relationships. The right to human dignity appears, in fact, to have formed the backbone of the majority Opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges which, taking as its basis that ‘the right to personal choice regarding marriage is inherent in the concept of individual autonomy’ and that ‘[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices’, concluded that the US Constitution should be read as granting to same-sex couples the fundamental right to marry in the same terms that this has always been granted to opposite-sex couples.

Accordingly, it is obvious from the above analysis that the refusal of the host Member State to recognise the same-sex marriages of mobile Union citizens, amounts to an unjustified breach of a number of fundamental rights (free movement and residence rights; non-discrimination on the ground of sexual orientation; human dignity) that these individuals derive from EU law.

Conclusion

As things stand, it is clear that the EU cannot require Member States to open marriage to same-sex couples. Nonetheless, a number of EU law provisions appear to require Member States to recognise same-sex marriages lawfully entered into in the territory of another Member State. Accordingly, Union citizens who move to another Member State should be allowed to be accompanied or joined there by their same-sex spouse and should be treated as ‘spouses’, once they are admitted into the territory of the host State. Accordingly, the EU can no longer stand idle, turning a blind eye to the violation by some Member States of the fundamental rights of a segment of the EU population (i.e. the LGB population). The ECJ (when given the opportunity) and the EU legislature, should make it clear that EU Member States are required by EU law to recognise the same-sex marriages of mobile Union citizens, just as they do in situations involving Union citizens who are married to an opposite-sex partner.

Further Reading

A. Tryfonidou, ‘EU Free Movement Law and the Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Relationships: The Case for Mutual Recognition’ (2015) Columbia Journal of European Law (forthcoming)

C. Casonato and A. Schuster (eds), ‘Rights on the Move: Rainbow Families in Europe: Proceedings of the Conference:  Trento, 16-17 October 2014’ available at http://eprints.biblio.unitn.it/4448/

D. Gallo, L. Paladini and P. Pustorino (eds), Same-Sex Couples before National, Supranational and International Jurisdictions (Springer, 2014)

R. Wintemute and M. Andenas (eds), Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Study of National, European and International Law (Hart, 2001)

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[i]  The Netherlands (2001), Belgium (2003), Spain (2005), Sweden (2009), Portugal (2010), Denmark (2012), France (2013), UK (2014) (apart from Northern Ireland), Luxembourg (2015), Finland (from 2017), Ireland (popular referendum yielded a positive result; awaiting for the law to be passed), Slovenia (proposal for same-sex marriage currently under discussion).

[ii]  Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia. Some of these Member States (i.e. Austria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Malta), however, offer to same-sex couples the option of a registered partnership/cohabitation.

[iii]  Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia.

[iv]  A parallelism can be drawn here with ECJ case-law where it was held that the refusal to recognise a surname registered in another Member State or in accordance with the practice followed in another Member State leads to a substantial degree of inconvenience which, in its turn, can impede the exercise of free movement rights. See, most prominently, Case C-148/02 Garcia Avello ECLI:EU:C:2003:539 and Case C-353/06 Grunkin and Paul ECLI:EU:C:2008:559. This parallelism was first drawn in G. Biaggioni, ‘On Recognition of Foreign Same-Sex Marriages and Partnerships’ in D. Gallo, L. Paladini and P. Pustorino (eds), Same-Sex Couples before National, Supranational and International Jurisdictions (Springer, 2014), 376-377.

[v] This right was, also, used by the Court (together with other the right to respect for private and family life protected under Article 7 of the Charter and Directive 2004/83) in order to limit the freedom of national authorities to use various practices when seeking to establish the sexual orientation of LGB asylum-seekers – see A., B, C case (for comments on the case see the piece by Steve Peers in this blog here). 

Barnard & Peers: chapter 13, chapter 20

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