The Queen v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, ex parte Trevor Robert Fisher and Penny Fisher
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Avis juridique important | 61998J0369 Judgment of the Court (Fourth Chamber) of 14 September 2000. - The Queen v Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, ex parte Trevor Robert Fisher and Penny Fisher. - Reference for a preliminary ruling: High Court of Justice (England & Wales), Queen's Bench Division (Divisional Court) - United Kingdom. - Aid schemes - Computerised database - Disclosure of information. - Case C-369/98. European Court reports 2000 Page I-06751 Summary Parties Grounds Decision on costs Operative part Keywords 1. Agriculture - Common agricultural policy - Integrated administration and control system for certain aid schemes - Computerised database of a Member State - Disclosure by the competent authority to a new operator of information relating to the data provided by a previous applicant for compensatory payments - Conditions(Council Regulation No 3508/92, Arts 3(1) and 9)2.
Agriculture - Common agricultural policy - Integrated administration and control system for certain aid schemes - Refusal by the competent authority to disclose the information necessary to ensure the proper submission of an application for aid - Imposition of penalties on the basis of undisclosed information - Not permissible(Commission Regulation No 3887/92, Art. 9) Summary 1. ( see para. 39 and operative part 1 )2. ( see para. 47 and operative part 2 ) Parties In Case C-369/98,REFERENCE to the Court under Article 177 of the EC Treaty (now Article 234 EC) by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Queen's Bench Division (Divisional Court), for a preliminary ruling in the proceedings pending before that court betweenThe QueenandMinister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food,ex parte Trevor Robert Fisher and Penny Fisher, trading as TR & P Fisher,on the interpretation of Articles 3(1) and 9 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3508/92 of 27 November 1992 establishing an integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes (OJ 1992 L 355, p.
1) and of Article 9 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3887/92 of 23 December 1992 laying down detailed rules for applying the integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes (OJ 1992 L 391, p. O. G. Kapteyn (Rapporteur) and H. Ragnemalm, Judges,Advocate General: S. Alber,Registrar: H. von Holstein, Deputy Registrar,after considering the written observations submitted on behalf of:- Mr and Mrs Fisher, by H. Mercer, Barrister, instructed by P. Till, Solicitor,- the United Kingdom Government, by R. Magrill, of the Treasury Solicitor's Department, acting as Agent, and P. Watson, Barrister,- the Commission of the European Communities, by X. Lewis, of its Legal Service, acting as Agent,having regard to the Report for the Hearing,after hearing the oral observations of Mr and Mrs Fisher, of the United Kingdom Government and of the Commission at the hearing on 16 December 1999,after hearing the Opinion of the Advocate General at the sitting on 10 February 2000,gives the followingJudgment Grounds 1 By order of 13 March 1998, received at the Court on 16 October 1998, the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Queen's Bench Division (Divisional Court), referred for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the EC Treaty (now Article 234 EC) three questions concerning the interpretation of Articles 3(1) and 9 of Council Regulation (EEC) No 3508/92 of 27 November 1992 establishing an integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes (OJ 1992 L 355, p.
1) and of Article 9 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3887/92 of 23 December 1992 laying down detailed rules for applying the integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes (OJ 1992 L 391, p. The legal frameworkThe Community provisions3 Council Regulation (EEC) No 1765/92 of 30 June 1992 (OJ 1992 L 181, p. 12) establishes a support system for producers of certain arable crops as defined in Annex I thereto. Under that system, compensatory payments are to be made for each specified category of crop when grown on eligible land and provided that certain conditions are met (arable area payments). Each applicant under the main arable area payment scheme must undertake to set aside a minimum part of the land which is included in the application; for the relevant year, that was set at 10%. 4 Regulation No 3508/92 establishes the integrated administration and control system (IACS).
That system seeks to prevent fraud by imposing effective penalties in the event of irregularities or fraudulent conduct. Article 31. The computerised database shall record, for each agricultural holding, the data obtained from the aid applications. 6 Article 9(2) of Regulation No 3887/92 provides:If the area actually determined is found to be less than that declared in an "area" aid application, the area actually determined on inspection shall be used for calculation of the aid. The national provisions7 According to the order for reference, applications for arable area payments in the United Kingdom must be made on an IACS form, which consists of two parts: a Base Form and a Field Data Printout. The Field Data Printout lists each of the applicant's fields separately; for each field, the farmer must state what crop is growing in it or whether it has been set aside. Each year MAFF sends to all applicants for arable area payments who continue to farm the same land a computerised printout containing all the data provided by them in their application from the previous year.
9 Because of that requirement on the United Kingdom Base Form, a farmer receives, in the first year of farming a particular parcel of land, a blank Field Data Printout and is expected to obtain the information which would have been included on the Printout from sources other than MAFF. The dispute in the main proceedings10 Fisher works three farms: Glebe Farm, Castle Hill Farm and Carlam Hill Farm. Castle Hill Farm and Carlam Hill Farm are owned by Flint Co. Ltd (Flint) and, until 1995, were let to a Mr Nicholson. 11 In the summer of 1995, Flint's agents asked Mr Fisher to inspect the crops on Castle Hill Farm and Carlam Hill Farm in order to see what was harvestable. The inspection was carried out by Mr Fisher, who was accompanied by a crop consultant. 12 The national court points out that neither Mr Nicholson nor anyone acting on his behalf was willing to provide Fisher with information concerning the previous farming history of the two farms.
Accordingly, at the beginning of November 1995, Fisher asked MAFF for that information on the ground that Fisher had been unable to obtain it elsewhere, a fact which MAFF has not disputed. 14 By letter of 21 November 1995, MAFF accepted that Fisher had exhausted all the conventional means of obtaining the information requested and supplied it with basic details of the land on the two farms and information as to which land had been set aside in previous years. 15 By the time that information reached Fisher, it had already sown some of the land, with the remainder to be sown the following spring. 16 On 3 May 1996, Fisher submitted its IACS form to MAFF. 18 Fisher appealed against the decision imposing those penalties. 19 Fisher argued before the national court that the error made in setting aside non-eligible land resulted from MAFF's refusal to provide it with details of the previous cropping history of the land in question.
It claimed that MAFF had acted unlawfully in two respects. First, had the necessary information requested in November 1995 been provided, Fisher would have known which fields were eligible for set-aside and would therefore not have set aside ineligible land the following spring when carrying out its spring sowing. Second, MAFF acted unlawfully inasmuch as, in penalising Fisher for errors made in its IACS application, it relied on information which it had previously refused to supply to Fisher, despite having been requested to do so. 20 Before the national court, MAFF argued in response to the first submission that it could not have provided the requested information on the previous cropping history without infringing its obligations vis-à-vis Mr Nicholson and a receiver, who had provided that information in confidence in accordance with the above-mentioned declaration on the Base Form. 21 MAFF further argued, and the national court accepted, that Fisher could have ensured that the land set aside was land eligible to be set aside had it used the information which it obtained from its own inspection in the summer of 1995 and the information given to it by MAFF in November 1995.
The national court found, however, that this was not an answer to Fisher's submissions and held it to be a fact that, if the additional information sought by Fisher had been supplied to it before the sowing in the spring of 1996, Fisher would have chosen to set aside only eligible land. 27 In this regard, it is clear from the second and third recitals in the preamble to Regulation No 3508/92 that it is designed to make administrative and control mechanisms more effective. 33 In that connection, the provisions of Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data (OJ 1995 L 281 p. 43 Next, it is important to note that penalties cannot be imposed where the declaration is false as a result of inaccurate information emanating from the competent authority.
44 The same is true where the declaration is false as a result of the lack of information from the competent authority. 47 The answer to Questions 2 and 3 must therefore be that, in the event of refusal to disclose the information requested, the competent authority cannot, on the basis of the information which it did not provide to the applicant at the time of the application, impose penalties on him under Article 9 of Regulation No 3887/92. Decision on costs Costs48 The costs incurred by the Untied Kingdom Government and by the Commission, which have submitted observations to the Court, are not recoverable. Since these proceedings are, for the parties to the main proceedings, a step in the action pending before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court. Operative part On those grounds,THE COURT (Fourth Chamber),in answer to the questions referred to it by the High Court of Justice of England and Wales, Queen's Bench Division (Divisional Court), by order of 13 March 1998, hereby rules:1.
2. In the event of refusal to disclose the information requested, the competent authority cannot, on the basis of the information which it did not provide to the applicant at the time of the application, impose penalties on him under Article 9 of Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3887/92 of 23 December 1992 laying down detailed rules for applying the integrated administration and control system for certain Community aid schemes.