Proceedings brought by Peñarroja Fa (Joined Cases C-372/09 and C-373/09); [2011] WLR (D) 98

“A duty entrusted by a court, in relation to specific matters within the context of a dispute before it, to a professional who had been appointed as a court expert translator constituted the provision of services for the purposes of article 50EC of the EC Treaty (now article 57FEU of the FEU Treaty)). The activities of court experts in the field of translation did not constitute activities which were connected with the ‘exercise of official authority’ for the purposes of the first paragraph of article 45EC of the EC Treaty (now article 51FEU of the FEU Treaty). Article 49 EC (now Article 56 TFEU) precluded (a) national legislation under which (i) enrolment in a register of court expert translators was subject to conditions concerning qualifications but (ii) the interested parties could not obtain knowledge of the reasons for the decision taken and that decision was not open to effective judicial scrutiny enabling its legality to be reviewed, inter alia, with regard to its compliance with the requirement under European Union law that the qualifications obtained and recognised in other member states had to have been properly taken into account; and (b) a requirement that no person might be enrolled in a national register of court experts as a translator unless he could prove that he had been enrolled for three consecutive years in a register of court experts maintained by a particular national court, where such a requirement was found to prevent the qualification obtained by a person and recognised in that another member state from being duly taken into account for the purposes of determining whether that qualification might attest to skills equivalent to those normally expected of a person who had been enrolled for three consecutive years in a register of court experts maintained by the member state in which the expert was seeking enrolment. The duties of court expert translators, as discharged by experts enrolled in a national register were not covered by the definition of ‘regulated profession’ set out in article 3(1)(a) of Parliament and Council Directive 2005/36/EC of 7 September 2005 on the recognition of professional qualifications (OJ 2005 L 255, p 22).”

WLR Daily, 17th March 2011

Source: www.iclr.co.uk

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