Netherlands

Judgment of November 16, 2022

This judgment concerns the disclosure of information about the crash of Flight MH17 over Ukraine in July 2014.

This is the second reference for a preliminary ruling in this case.

In this case, the Minister wants to keep secret information about the safety of air traffic at Schiphol airport, which was requested by a broadcasting organization (AVROTOS). This aggregated information comes from a database based on the "special" disclosure regulation (EU) 376/2014.

The Council of State of the Netherlands therefore referred a question to the European Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling (Case C-707/22) in order to find out (inter alia) whether, in light of the right to freedom of expression and information enshrined in Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, this type of general information falls within the concept of "details of occurences" in Article 15(1) of the Regulation, under which no data received from reported events may be disclosed.

http://www.aca-europe.eu/index.php/en/jurifast-en?ID=4280

Germany

Judgment of July 27, 2022

This judgment concerns a refusal of VAT exemption for the activities of a sports association.

The applicant is a private law association whose object is the maintenance and promotion of golf. To this end, it operates a golf course and related facilities, which it rents to a company. In 2011, the applicant received income from various activities. The tax authorities refused to exempt these activities from VAT. It considered that only the registration fees for golf events are exempt provided that the applicant is a public benefit organisation.

The Administrative Court held that, although the services in question were not exempt under national law, they were indeed exempt as a direct consequence of Article 132(1)(m) of Directive 2006/112/EC. In the course of the appeal proceedings, the Federal Finance Court (BFH) expressed doubts about this interpretation of EU law. According to the BFH, the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) would mean that no direct effect would be associated with Article 132(1)(m) of Directive 2006/112/EC. The BFH stayed the proceedings and submitted the following questions to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling (C-488/18):

1. Does Article 132(1)(m) of [the VAT Directive], under which Member States are to exempt “the supply of certain services closely linked to sport or physical education by non-profit-making organisations to persons taking part in sport or physical education”, have direct effect, with the result that, in the absence of transposition, that provision may be relied on directly by non-profit-making organisations?

2. If the first question is answered in the affirmative: Is “non-profit-making organisation” within the meaning of Article 132(1)(m) of the VAT Directive

- a concept that must be interpreted under EU law autonomously, or

- are the Member States authorised to make the existence of such an organisation subject to conditions such as Paragraph 52, in conjunction with Paragraph 55, of the AO (or Paragraph 51 et seq. of the AO in their entirety)?

3. If it is a concept that must be interpreted under EU law autonomously: Must a non-profit-making organisation within the meaning of Article 132(1)(m) of [the VAT Directive] have rules that apply in the event that the organisation is dissolved, under which it has to transfer its existing assets to another non-profit-making organisation in order to promote sport and physical education?’

The Court of Justice of the European Union replied that:

“1. Article 132(1)(m) of Council Directive 2006/112/EC of 28 November 2006 on the common system of value added tax must be interpreted as not having direct effect, meaning that, if the legislation of a Member State transposing that provision exempts from value added tax only a limited number of services closely linked to sport or physical education, that provision may not be directly relied upon before the national courts by a non-profit-making organisation in order to obtain an exemption for other services closely linked to sport or physical education that are provided by that organisation to persons taking part in those activities and that are not exempt under that legislation.

2. Article 132(1)(m) of Directive 2006/112 must be interpreted as meaning that the concept of a ‘non-profit-making organisation’, within the meaning of that provision, constitutes an autonomous concept of EU law, which requires that, in the event that such an organisation is dissolved, it may not distribute to its members any surpluses that it has made that exceed the capital shares paid up by those members and the market value of any contributions in kind made by them”.

The Bundesfinanzhof then decided, in line with the CJEU decision, that a non-profit organisation could not directly invoke Article 132(1)(m) of Directive 2006/112/EC before the national courts. It thus modified its existing case law. Furthermore, it reiterated the statements of the CJEU in paragraph 50 regarding the conditions of a non-profit organisation:

“50. The non-profit-making objective of those organisations presupposes that they must not achieve profits for their members, throughout their existence, including at the time of their dissolution. If that were not the case, such an organisation could, in effect, circumvent that requirement by distributing to its members, after its dissolution, all the surpluses made from all of its activities, despite having benefited from tax and other advantages as a result of its classification as a ‘non-profit-making organisation’”.

http://www.aca-europe.eu/index.php/en/jurifast-en?ID=3635

Italy

In January 2023, Luigi Maruotti has been appointed President of the Council of State of Italy.

Graduated in law from the University of Naples, Luigi Maruotti became State Prosecutor and State Attorney. In the same year, he assumed the functions of magistrate of the Regional Administrative Court (T.A.R) of Puglia and, subsequently, in 1988 he obtained the qualification of Councillor T.A.R.

He became Councillor of State in 1989, President of Section in July 2010. Due to his high professionalism and competence, he was called to perform his duties in all the Judicial Sections of the Council of State. On 1 January 2016 he was designated President of the Third Section. On 25 February 2022, he was appointed Deputy President of the Council of State, but he continues to serve as President of the Third Section and President of the Studies Office. He has been nominated President of the Council of State as of 23 January 2023.

Rapporteur and draftsman of the single text on expropriations approved by d.p.r. n. 327 of 2001, he participated in numerous special commissions set up at the Council of State both as a member as well as president. He was the author of articles 33-35 of Legislative Decree No. 80 of 1998, in implementation of the delegation under Law No. 59 of 1997 and of several opinions given to the Government on the draft regulations provided for by art. 17 of Law No. 400 of 1988. He was an expert in the Commission for the examination of legislative initiatives in the field of administrative activity and protection of citizens in the Department for the Public Service and for the Coordination of Information and Security Service. In addition, Luigi Maruotti was a member of the Advisory Section of the Italian Football Federation from 2016 to 2018.

https://www.giustizia-amministrativa.it

Belgium

By Royal Decree of 4 September 2022, the king of the Belgians appointed Mr Wilfried Van Vaerenbergh as First President of the Council of State for a term of five years. He took the oath on 29 September 2022.

Wilfried Van Vaerenbergh obtained a master’s degree in Communication Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel in 1981. Furthermore he holds a master’s degree in Law which he obtained at the KU Leuven in 1988. For one year (1989-1990) he also attended the course “Master in Public Administration” at EHSAL Brussel.

From 1988 to 1990 he was Assistant Auditor at the Court of Audit.

He began his career at the Council of State of Belgium as an Assistant Rapporteur (1990-1992), and later on he became Assistant Auditor, Auditor (1992-2001), First Auditor (2001-2005), Councillor of State of the 1st Chamber (2005-2021) and Chamber President of the 3rd Chamber (2021-2022). Now, Wilfried Van Vaerenbergh has been elected and appointed First President. In this capacity, he shall preside the General Assemblies of the Council of State.

Wilfried Van Vaerenbergh has been mainly active in the fields of labour law, social security law and tax law. For several years he has been one of the Council of State’s press magistrates.

http://www.raadvst-consetat.be

Denmark

From November 2022, Jens Peter Christensen has been appointed President of the Supreme Court of Denmark.

Born in Skive in 1956, President Christensen has obtained a Master of Science degree in Political Science (Cand. scient. pol.) in 1982, a Ph.D. (Lic.jur.) in 1990, a Masters of Laws degree in 1992. He is a juris doctor (Dr. Jur.) since 1997.

Before joining the Supreme Court of Denmark as a Judge in 2006, mr. Christensen worked as a legal officer for the Municipality of Copenhagen in the early stages of his career (1983-1984). In 1984, he joined the University of Aarhus, where he held a position as Teaching Assistant of economics (1979-1982), Lecturer at the Department of Political Science and Government (1984-1985), as Research Fellow at the Department of Law (1988-1990), as Senior Lecturer of public law (1990-1998) and as Professor of public law (1998-2011). Mr. Christensen has also served as a teaching assistant in economics at the University of Copenhagen (1983-1984) and Copenhagen Business School (1986-1992) and taught business law at Copenhagen Business School between 1992 and 1994. He was a teaching assistant of constitutional law at the University of Copenhagen from 1987-1997.

Between 1999 and 2000 he served as a temporary judge in the Western High Court/ Court of Appeal. Since 2006, he serves as a Supreme Court Judge at the Supreme Court of Denmark.

Furthermore, Mr. Christensen has chaired a wide range of research and legislative committees and commissions, including committees on the freedom of expression of civil servants and whistleblower schemes and on the right to vote when staying abroad.

Mr. Christensen is the author of many academic publications, books and research articles. His achievements have been recognised with numerous awards, including the Gads Fonds Juristpris in 1991 and the Filtenborgprisen in 2003.

On the occasion of his 60th birthday on 1 November 2016, a festschrift ‘Festskrift til Jens Peter Christensen’ was published by DJØF Publishing in honour of mr. Christensen’s distinguished career.

https://domstol.dk/hoejesteret

Lithuania

Since July 2022, Mrs. Skirgailė Žalimienė has been appointed as President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.

President Skirgailė Žalimienė studied law at the Law Faculty of Vilnius University. She obtained a Master’s degree in law in 1996 and a Ph.D. in law (Dr. Juris) in 2001. Her doctoral thesis focused on ‘the freedom of establishment under the law of European Community’.

Ever since, she has been academically active. At Vilnius University, she served subsequently as a Lecturer (1998 – 2005) and Associate Professor (2005 – 2021) before being appointed as Professor in 2022. In her current position as Professor of the Public Law Department at Vilnius University, she teaches European Union Law. Between 2002 and 2005, she also joined Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius as a Lecturer.

Prior to joining the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania in 2008, Mrs. Žalimienė was employed at the European Law Department under the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania, where she served as an Expert between 1999 and 2002, as the Head of the EU Law Section from 2002 to 2004 and as Deputy Director General from 2004 to 2008.

From September 2008, Mrs. Žalimienė served as a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania. She has since been appointed Vice-President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania in 2019. Starting 26 July 2022, she became President of the Supreme Administrative Court of Lithuania.

She has disseminated her broad expertise in European Union law through her participation in a number of (research) projects, such as the EU Twinning project (Croatia and Ukraine) and as a project manager for the Research Project ‘Constitutional consciousness as a Remedium for the Crisis of discourse and democratic deficit in the European Union”.

https://www.lvat.lt/

For a complete overview of the calendar, see our website.

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