Brussels, 25/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Italian statute which excludes all State liability for damage caused to individuals by a breach of EU law on the part of a national court adjudicating at last instance, or which limits State liability to cases of intentional fault or gross negligence, is contrary to EU law.
That was the ruling of the EU Court of Justice in a judgement delivered on Thursday 24 November in Case C-379/10, upholding an action for failure to fulfil obligations lodged by the European Commission in July 2010. The Commission sought confirmation that, with these provisions (Law No 117 of 13 April 1988), Italy was breaching the general principle of member state liability for infringement of EU law.
The Court found in the Commission's favour. Under EU law, all member states must make good damage caused to individuals as a result of infringements of EU law which are attributable to them, whichever state body is responsible for the damage, including one of their courts adjudicating at last instance, where three conditions are met: - (i) the rule of EU law infringed must confer rights on the individuals; (ii) the infringement must be sufficiently serious; and (iii) there must be a direct causal link between the breach of the obligation on the state and the damage sustained by the individual.
When this infringement results from an interpretation of the rules of law or consideration of the facts and evidence by a court adjudicating at last instance, the Italian law completely excludes all State liability for infringement of EU law by the court. The Court of Justice noted that such a general exclusion is clearly in breach of Court case-law (Ruling C-173/03, Traghetti del Mediterraneo). Moreover the Court found that Italy had not established that the Italian legislation is interpreted by the Italian courts “as merely imposing a limit on State liability and not as ruling it out altogether”.
When the infringement by the same court does not result from the interpretation of the rules of law or consideration of the facts and evidence, under the Italian law state liability can be incurred only in cases involving intentional fault or gross negligence. Here again, this is contrary to EU law. The Court said that a “sufficiently serious breach of a rule of EU law” arises where the national court has “manifestly infringed the applicable law” (Ruling C-224/01, Köbler). National law may define the nature or the degree of a breach resulting in State liability but on no account may it impose stricter requirements than those entailed by the condition requiring a “manifest infringement of the applicable law”, as the Italian Court of Cassation did in interpreting the notion of “gross negligence”. (FG/transl.rt)