The case arose in the Queen’s Bench Division (Divisional Court) of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. The conflict arose when the Secretary of State proposed the Severn Estuary, an area owned by the Bristol port authority, First Corporate Shipping company, as a site requiring special protection due to the wild birds under the European Council Directive 79/409/EEC of 2 April 1979. Under Article 4(1), the area was classified as an SAC of the Habitats Directive, which would ultimately affect the port authority’s development of the area. First Corporate Shipping Company argued that the Secretary of State had not taken into account the economic, social and cultural requirements under Article 2(3) of the Habitats Directive.
In this proceeding the European Court had to decide whether a Member State is entitled or obliged to take account of considerations laid down by Art. 2(3) when deciding which sites to propose to the Commission pursuant to Article 4(1) of the Directive to define a boundary for such a site. For this reason, the question of interpretation was put forward to the European Court of Justice.
A preliminary ruling under Article 234 of the EC Treaty is applied when there has a dispute at national level and questions arise concerning the interpretation and validity of a Community act. If the final appeal to the House of Lords fails in the English court system, it would be referred to the CJEC, but only on the provision that it is “necessary”. It would not deem to be "necessary" if the question of Community law is irrelevant, or the Court of Justice has already interpreted the provision, or the correct application is obvious. The Court of Justice interprets the Community Law and is regarded to be strictly bound by its earlier decisions, national precedent have no effect to the CJEC.
- How should article 4(1) of the Habitat Directive be interpreted according to FCS (the statutory port authority for the port of Bristol)?
The FCS argued in paragraph 17 that article 4(1) of the Habitat Directive should be interpreted pursuant to the meaning of Article 2(3) which is that a Member State should take into account of economic, social and cultural requirements and regional and local characteristics when drawing up the list of sites to the Commission. They argue that Article 4(1) should not solely provide for conserving areas of natural habitats and of wild fauna and flora but that a Member State should be obliged to consider other relevant factors such as those under Article 2(3) of the Habitats Directive. Article 2(3) of the Habitats Directive states, “Measures taken pursuant to this Directive shall take account of economic, social and cultural requirements and regional and local characteristics”.
The FCS argued that the Habitats Directive should be approached with a contextual interpretation. This involves putting the provision in the context of other Community law and treating the EC Treaty as a large design where all Treaties and provisions are a part of a single scheme. An example of where this type of interpretation has been used is the case of Pubblico Ministero v Manghera where Article 37(1) was interpreted in relation to other provisions of the article and taking account of its place in the general scheme of the Treaty.
- What answer did the ECJ provide as to the interpretation of article 4(1) of the Habitats Directive? How did the ECJ justify its answer?
In this case, the Court answers the question of how the Directive should be interpreted at national level in the final paragraph of the judgment. It states that “a Member State may not take account of economic, social and cultural requirements or regional and local characteristics, as mentioned in Article 2(3) of that directive, when selecting and defining the boundaries of the sites to be proposed to the Commission as eligible for identification as sites of Community importance”.
In justifying this decision, the Court underlined the relevance of the Directive as creating “a coherent European ecological network”. On this basis, the Court should not have to take into account the conservation status at national level, but in relation to the entire European territory of the Member State. They recognized that the objective of the Habitat Directive (under Article 3(1)) is to maintain or restore the natural range, which may lie across one or more frontiers inside the Community. If economic, social or cultural requirements were taken into account because of regional or local characteristics, it would jeopardize “the realization of that objective at Community level”. Therefore, the Court interprets Article 4(1) at a European level rather than a national level, taking into account the objective of the Directive on a wider scale. They also drew concern to the practicality of interpreting Article 2(3) in pursuant of Article 4(1), and decided that to produce a draft lift of the areas that have an ecological interest by taking into account the factors would be “exhaustive”. Furthermore, the selecting and defining sites taking into account the regional and local characteristics would be highly impractical and jeopardising the objective of the Directive. Both these factors led the Court to decide that Article 2(3) should not be taken into account in such a case.
- What method(s) of interpretation did the European Court of Justice adopt in interpreting the provisions of the Habitats Directive? You should support your answer with evidence from the text of judgment.
We can identify more than one approach adopted by the European Court of Justice when interpreting the Habitats Directive in this case.
Firstly, the courts have taken the “Teleological Interpretation” of the Directive. The Court has taken into account the purpose of the Directive, “Only in that way is it possible to realise the objective…” (Paragraph 23). In Community law, the objectives of the Directives are set in very general terms so it is important for the Court to find the underlying objective of the Directive in its effectiveness towards a European Community. We can see a similar approach applied to the case of Colditz v Caisse d’assurance viellesse des travailleurs salariés de Paris where social security regulations were a concern. On Articles 48 to 51, the Court decided “the solution to this question…can only emerge from the interpretation of those regulations in the light of the objectives of the provision of the Treaty”. Similarly, in this case, the European Court of Justice decided that the objective of the Habitats Directive was “of maintaining or restoring the natural habitat types and the species’ habitats concerned”. However, the Court did not solely rely on one method of interpretation, but also submerged the “Contextual Interpretation”.
The FCS argued the use of this interpretation to take into account Article 2(3) of the economic, social and cultural factors in pursuant to Article 4(1) of the Habitats Directive. Their use of the contextual interpretation was much narrower than that adopted in this judgment. Here, the FCS has looked at the relationship between the Articles within the Directive, whereas the Court has reviewed Article 4(1) in relation to the entire objective of the Directive itself. The Court underlines that “the question of interpretation referred for a preliminary ruling relates only to Stage 1 of the procedure for classifying natural sites as SACs laid down by Article 4(1) of the Habitats Directive.” (paragraph 12). They do not, therefore, see any relation to the Article of main concern, with Article 2(3) on the economic, social and cultural factors. The Court also interpreted broadly, the purpose of the Habitats Directive in relation to the entire Community. Emphasis of “Community importance” and “coherent European ecological network” is evidence that the impact of Directive to the Community as a whole is of utmost importance when interpreting an Article of a Directive.
The Court also takes on another method of interpretation that was of a major significance to their preliminary ruling in the judgment. The Court assessed the practicality of interpreting Article 4(1) in conjunction with Article 2(3) as argued by FCS. It is unsure whether this particular category of interpretation is usually adopted in European Courts, but it is necessary to mention that such an approach should be recognised in this case.
In conclusion, the European Court of Justice combined both the teleological and contextual interpretations in this case as in Defrenne v SABENA where the question of equal pay and equal work were put forward to the Court. It was decided that the economic and social purpose of Article 119 should be taking into account, as well as the relationship between this Article, and Article 117 concerning the working conditions, which were to be interpreted in conjunction. Although in the present case, Article 4(1) should be interpreted alone, it is important to point out that the contextual approach used had an added factor of assessing the practicality in implementing what was proposed to the Court.
Learning Legal Rules – James A Holland & Julian S. Webb