C-399/09 Landtova: Make Love No War!

On 3 March 2011, Advocate General Villalón presented his opinion in C-399/09 Landtova, a highly controversial case in the Czech Republic, as it involves the Supreme Administrative Court revolting against the Constitutional Court (and its establised case-law).

Background

When Czechoslovakia fell apart by the end of 1992 and was succeeded by the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the two countries decided (in a bilateral agreement) to take account of the "federation time" for the purposed of counting the pension in the following way: where, by the end of 1992, a person worked for an employer based in the Czech Republic, the "federation time" was deemed to be "Czech time" and vice versa. Landtova is a Czech national who, by the end of 1992, worked for an employer based in Slovakia, meaning that her "federation time" is considered to be "Slovak time". As a result, her pension is lower than it would have been if she had benefited from the "Czech time".

When faced with applicants like Landtova, the Constitutional Court ruled that this was contrary to the Constitution (the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms, to be more precise) and required that such applicants should be treated as if they worked for an employer based in the Czech Republic by the end of 1992, and there pensions should accordingly be increased to the appropriate level (so that the Czechs with Slovak-based employers are not discriminated against as opposed to the Czechs with Czech-based employers).

The Supreme Administrative Court repeatedly disagreed with the Constitutional Court and, finally, sent the case to Luxembourg, taking the view that the rule "created" by the Counstitutional Court runs counter to Regulation no 1408/71 and to the ban on discrimination.

Say what I should say

Advocate General (AG) took the view that the rule concerned is not incompatible with Regulation no 1408/71, but is discriminatory.

Regarding Regulation no 1408/71, AG was rather quick to conclude that the rule concered does not interfere with the provisions on how to count a pension of a migrating person (as contained in the Regulation and in the agreement concluded between the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 19992). For a simple reason: the rule concerned comes only after the said provision have been applied.

il convient de noter que le complément auquel peuvent prétendre les ressortissants tchèques résidant dans leur pays n’est pas une prestation calculée à la liquidation de la prestation générale, mais après celle‑ci. En d’autres termes, quiconque bénéficie d’une prestation soumise au règlement n° 1408/71 et à la convention tchéco‑slovaque doit, en premier lieu, s’adresser aux autorités désignées dans cette réglementation et calculer le montant correspondant, conformément aux dispositions pertinentes. La question de l’éventuel droit au complément de prestation, tel qu’il résulte de la jurisprudence de l’Ústavní soud, ne se pose qu’une fois cette opération réalisée. Il s’agit, par conséquent, d’un complément de prestation au sens strict ou, en d’autres termes, d’une révision à la hausse du montant de la prestation, qui n’a pas pour but d’altérer la méthode de calcul, mais la situation juridique du bénéficiaire. Ce complément de prestation n’est au demeurant pas accordé d’office, mais à la demande de l’intéressé, car il s’agit d’un droit accessoire accompagnant la prestation générale.

This, I think, is reasonable. After all, the purpose of Regulation no 1408/71 is precisely to make sure that "people are not given less" (so that they would not be put at disadvantage because of the fact that they decided to move freely around the Union). If they are "given more", no problem...

Regarding discrimination, AG was again quick to conclude that the rule concerned is incompatible with the ban on discrimination as it is limited to Czech nationals (who reside in the Czech Republic). It might be interesting to note here that AG seems to regret that no party to the proceedings really tried to defend the discriminatory rule (Nous estimons par conséquent que, en l’absence d’autres arguments apportés au dossier, le champ d’application personnel assigné au complément de prestation en cause constitue une discrimination dépourvue de justification objective et raisonnable.)

And that is when it starts to be really interesting. Starting from para 53 (under the title "Les conséquences d’une déclaration de violation du principe de non‑discrimination de l’Union sur la décision devant être prise par la juridiction de renvoi"), AG explains at length what the conclusion that there has been discrimination is to mean. According to AG, where discrimination is established, the basic rule is to make sure that the disadvantaged persons are given the same advantages as the advantaged persons (un nivellement «par le haut»), until the Member States amends the situation itself (be it through un nivellement «par le bas»). The problem here was that Landtova is not a victim of discrimination (she is at risk of being discriminated against on the national level, but this is obviously irelevant from the EU perspective), but (potentially at least) belongs to the group of the persons put at advantage (by the rule "created" by the Constitutional Court). In her case, un nivellement "par le bas" would be possible, but AG apparently tries to avoid that:

Ce qu’il convient de faire en l’espèce est à la fois plus modeste et moins usuel: il s’agit, en effet, d’éviter que la constatation du caractère discriminatoire de la disposition nationale ait pour effet immédiat de justifier la suppression, dans le cas concret, de l’avantage que la loi reconnaît à la personne qui relève du champ d’application subjectif de cette disposition. Tout cela ne s’applique bien entendu qu’en attendant que la République tchèque mette en place une règlementation générale en la matière, suivant les procédures législatives ou constitutionnelles que prévoit son ordre juridique.


This is reflected in the following way in the proposed response to the second preliminary questions itself:
 
Les articles 3 et 10 du règlement n° 1408/71, interprétés à la lumière de l’article 39 CE, doivent être interprétés en ce sens qu’ils s’opposent à l’octroi d’un complément de prestation de sécurité sociale, avec les caractéristiques susmentionnées, aux seuls ressortissants tchèques qui résident sur le territoire de la République tchèque. Cependant, dans les circonstances particulières de l’espèce, la réponse à la question précédente ne saurait servir de fondement aux prétentions de la CSSA dans le cadre de la procédure au principal.
 
My impression is that AG does everything to avoid the situation where the Constitutional Court would be faced with the delicated idea of having to abandon its own (established) case-law for its incompatibility with the EU law.
 
Well, let us see what the Court has to say on the matter.