Case C‑394/11
Valeri Hariev Belov
v
CHEZ Elektro Balgaria AD and Others
(Request for a preliminary ruling from the
Komisia za zashtita ot diskriminatsia)
(Request for a preliminary ruling — Article267 TFEU — Concept of ‘national court’— Lack of jurisdiction of the Court)
Summary — Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber), 31January 2013
Questions referred for a preliminary ruling— Reference to the Court— National court or Tribunal within the meaning of Article267 TFEU— Concept
(Art. 267 TFEU)
In order to establish whether a national body, entrusted by law with different categories of function, is to be regarded as a ‘court or tribunal’ within the meaning of Article267 TFEU, it is necessary to determine in what specific capacity it is acting within the particular legal context in which it seeks a ruling from the Court.
In that connection, such a body cannot be classified as a court or tribunal where, in the proceedings in which it makes a reference to the Court, it is found that those proceedings may be initiated by a party, but that they may also be brought of that body’s own motion, that the rules applicable and the results to which those proceedings are intended to lead are the same regardless as to whether they are instituted by an application or of that body’s own motion, or the fact that that body may join to the proceedings ‘of its own motion’ other persons than those designated by the applicant or that, where the decision of that body is challenged, it has the status of defendant and may revoke its decision.
(see paras 41, 43, 47-50)