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Le régime fiscal espagnol applicable à certains accords de location-financement conclus par des chantiers navals constitue un régime d’aides

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Le Tribunal annule la décision du Conseil de résolution unique sur le calcul des contributions ex ante au Fonds de résolution unique pour 2017 et constate l’illégalité partielle du règlement délégué 2015/63

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L’avocat général Bobek estime que la nomination ad interim de l'Inspecteur judiciaire en chef et les dispositions nationales relatives à la création d'une section spéciale des poursuites ayant compétence exclusive pour les infractions commises par des magistrats sont contraires au droit de l'Union

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Le principe de la libre prestation des services et la directive sur les soins de santé transfrontaliers s’opposent à une réglementation nationale qui exclut, en l’absence d’autorisation préalable, le remboursement des coûts liés à une intervention subie d’urgence par une personne assurée, résidente d’un État membre, dans un autre État membre

The Supreme Administrative Court in Poland (Naczelny Sąd Administracyjny – NSA) issued on 10 September 2020 two judgments concerning the legal status in Poland of a child born by a surrogate mother in the US.

Transcription – No!  

A US birth certificate indicated a Polish national as the father and also contained information that the child was born through surrogacy (without mentioning the surrogate mother’s name).

Two judgments were issued as a result of two separate administrative proceedings instituted by the father. One concerned the application for the transcription of the US birth certificate into Polish civil status registry. The other was resulted from the application for a confirmation that the child acquired Polish nationality by birth.

In both cases administrative authorities had rejected the requests based on grounds of public policy, stating that surrogacy arrangements are against fundamental principles of the legal order in Poland. One of these fundamental principles is that the mother is always a woman, who gave birth to the child, whereas paternity results from a scheme of legal presumptions. This argument is not new, as similar cases were dealt with before by administrative authorities and administrative courts.

This argument was also upheld by the NSA in the first judgement (signature: II OSK 1390/18) where it underlined that a foreign birth certificate, which does not indicate the mother, but only the father may not be transcribed into Polish civil status registry.

Acquisition of Nationality  – Yes!

What shows a slight evolution in the Court’s attitude is the second judgment (signature: II OSK 3362/17), where the NSA stated that a foreign birth certificate is the only proof of an occurrence mentioned in it and its probative force may not be questioned in the course of an administrative proceeding concerning acquisition of the nationality. For a confirmation to be produced, it suffices that the foreign birth certificate indicates a Polish national as a parent.

Here it might be reminded that an opposite view of the NSA with respect to nationality of children born by a surrogate mother resulted in a claim filed to the European Court of Human Rights against Poland in 2015 (communicated in 2019 – see cases nos. 56846/15 and 56849/15: here).

If Not Transcription – What?

The two commented cases show that in NSA’s view surrogacy arrangements are against public order in Poland, but at the same time the fact of being born by a surrogate mother should not impact the legal status in every respect and consequently quality of life of the child in Poland. In the first mentioned judgement, the NSA underlined that even without Polish birth certificate the child should be able to obtain a PESEL number (explained below), a national ID card and a passport. The practical question is whether the above is a wishful thinking of the NSA or this will happen in practice.

It must be explained that for an everyday life and functioning in Poland one should have a PESEL number (which name comes from the first letters of the Powszechny Elektroniczny System Ewidencji Ludności – the General Electronic System of Population Registration).

A PESEL must be provided when one applies for ID card, passport, files a tax return or wants to get a drug prescription. Similarly, a child’s PESEL must be indicated if parents/legal representatives apply for child’s ID card, want the child to be covered by the national social security system or want the child to go to a kindergarten. For children born in Poland (no matter if to Polish parents or foreigners) PESEL is issued in connection with the drafting of a birth certificate. If a Polish child is born abroad, the PESEL is issued in connection with the application for an ID card or a passport.

Hence, if a child does not have a Polish birth certificate or a foreign birth certificate which might be transcribed into Polish civil status registry (and additionally is not perceived as a Polish national), administrative authorities do not have an adequate legal basis for allocating a PESEL to the child and … everyday life might get complicated.

What are the Effects of the Judgments?

The judgments issued by the NSA are binding on the administrative authorities concerned and with respect to the particular cases at issue, but not on other authorities in other proceedings.

Hence, it remains to be seen whether a PESEL number and ID documents will be issued based on a foreign birth certificate as suggested by the NSA or whether another time-consuming proceeding will commence. As one can imagine the commented proceedings lasted for few years counting from the first application to the judgement of the NSA.

The information about the above two cases was published by Polish Ombudsman (Rzecznik Praw Obywatelskich) on its official website (see: here). The ombudsman joined both cases to support the applicant. Usually NSA’s judgements are published in the freely available official database once the justification part of the judgement is prepared (here). The justification is written after the judgement was issued. Hence, it is not yet available.

Dans un arrêt du 3 septembre 2020, la Cour de justice de l’Union européenne se penche, à propos de la détermination du juge compétent dans l’Union, sur la qualification d’une action en référé engagée par une organisation internationale appartenant à l’OTAN.

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La Cour de justice de l’Union européenne invalide une décision de la Commission qui avait qualifié d’aide d’État un allègement de charges au profit des pêcheurs français à la suite du naufrage de l’Erika.

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Today, the Explanatory Report (ER) was approved on the HCCH Convention of 2 July 2019 on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments in Civil or Commercial Matters (HCCH Judgments Convention), prepared by the co-Rapporteurs, Professor Francisco Garcímartin and Professor Geneviève Saumier, with the assistance of the Permanent Bureau of the HCCH. The Explanatory Report will be published shortly. In the meantime, a final version in “pre-publication” mode is available here. The full text of the announcement of the HCCH is here.

Following the roundtable organised on 29 October 2020 by the Croatian Academy of Science and Arts (HAZU), the book Private International Law – interaction among international, European and national legal instruments or, in the original, Medunarodno privatno pravo – interakcija medunarodnih, europskih i domacih propisa, has been published by HAZU. The volume contains the following papers:

I. KEYNOTE SECTION

Ivana Kunda
Upucivanje na propise EU u Zakonu o medunarodnom privatnom pravu (References to EU legal instruments in the Private International Law Act)

Hrvoje Sikiric
Priznanje i ovrha stranih odluka – praksa Suda EU (Recognition and enforcement of judgments – the CJEU case law)

Davor Babic
Stranacka autonomija u EU medunarodnom privatnom pravu (Party autonomy in private international law)

Ines Medic
Pocetak uredenja imovinskopravnih pitanja na razini EU, posljedice i moguci daljnji razvoj (Beginnings in regulating the property issues at the EU level, consequences and possible future development)

Mirela Zupan
Utjecaj ljudskih prava na suvremeno medunarodno privatno pravo (Effects of human rights over contemporary private international law)

II. DISCUSSION SECTION

Kristijan Turkalj
Iskustva hrvatskih sudova u postavljanju prethodnih pitanja pred Sudom EU (Experiences of Croatian courts in making preliminary references to the CJEU)

Tijana Kokic
Primjena uredbi EU iz medunarodnog privatnog prava na Opcinskom gradanskom sudu u Zagrebu (Application of the EU regulations on private international law before the General Civil Court in Zagreb)

Ines Brozovic
Medunarodno privatno pravo u praksi hrvatskih sudova – glediste odvjetnika (Private international law in the Croatian court practice – the attorney’s perspective)

Ljiljana Vodopija Cengic
Primjena uredbi EU iz medunarodnog privatnog i procesnog prava u ostavinskim postupcima koje provode javni biljeznici (Application of EU regulations on private and procedural international law in succession proceedings before the notaries)