Instantie

Hof van Justitie EG

Samenvatting

Prejudiciele vragen van de High Court te Dublin aan het EG-Hof over het
verbod van verspreiding van informatie in Ierland over mogelijkheden van
zwangerschapsonderbreking in een andere lidstaat, welke in Ierland zelf
verboden is. Het Hof oordeelt dat de medische zwangerschapsonderbreking een
‘dienst’ is in de zin van art. 60 EEG-Verdrag. Maar het verbod op
informatieverschaffing is geoorloofd door het ontbreken van een economische
band tussen de verstrekker van de dienst en degene die de informatie
verspreidt.

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Judgment

1. By order dated 5 March 1990, which was received at the Court on 23
May 1990, the High Court of Ireland referred to the Court for a preliminary
ruling under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty three questions on the
interpretation of Community law, in particular Article 60 of the EEC Treaty.

2. The questions arose in proceedings brought by the Society for the
Protection of Unborn Children Ireland Ltd (‘S.P.U.C.’) against Stephen Grogan
and fourteen other officers of students associations in connexion with the
distribution in Ireland of specific information relating to the identity and
location of clinics in another Member State where medical termination of
pregnancy is carried out.

3. Abortion has always been prohibited in Ireland, first of all at
common law, then by statute. The relevant provisions at present in force are
sections 58 and 59 of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, as reaffirmed
in the Health (Family Planning) Act 1979.

4. In 1983 a constitutional amendment approved by referendum inserted in
Article 40, Section 3, of the Irish Constitution a third subsection worded as
follows: ‘The State acknowledges the right to life of the unborn and, with due
regard to the equal right to life of the mother, guarantees in its laws to
respect, and, as far as practicable, by its laws to defend and vindicate that
right.’

5. According to the Irish courts (High Court, judgment of 19 December
1986, and Supreme Court, judgment of 16 March 1988, The Attorney General (at
the relation of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Ireland Ltd)
v Open Door Counselling Ltd and Dublin Wellwoman Centre Ltd [1988] Irish
Reports 593), to assist pregnant women in Ireland to travel abroad to obtain
abortions, inter alia by informing them of the identity and location of a
specific clinic or clinics where abortions are performed and how to contact
such clinics, is prohibited under article 40.3.3 of the Irish Constitution.

6. S.P.U.C., the plaintiff in the main proceedings, is a company
incorporated under Irish law whose purpose is to prevent the decriminalization
of abortion and to affirm, defend and promote human life from the moment of
conception. In 1989/90 Stephen Grogan and the other defendants in the main
proceedings were officers of students associations which issued certain
publications for students. Those publications contained information about the
availability of legal abortion in the United Kingdom, the identity and
location of a number of abortion clinics in that country and how to contact
them. It is undisputed that the students associations had no links with
clinics in another Member State.

7. In September 1989 S.P.U.C. requested the defendants, in their
capacity as officers of their respective associations, to undertake not to
publish information of the kind described above during the academic year
1989/90. The defendants did not reply, and S.P.U.C. then brought proceedings
in the High Court for a declaration that the distribution of such information
was unlawful and for an injunction restraining its distribution.

8. By a judgment of 11 October 1989 the High Court decided to refer
certain questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling under
Article 177 of the EEC Treaty before ruling on the injunction applied for by
the plaintiff. An appeal was brought against that judgment and, on 19 December
1989, the Supreme Court granted the injunction applied for but did not
overturn the High Court’s decision te refer questions to the Court of Justice
for a preliminary ruling. Moreover, each of the parties was given leave to
apply to the High Court in order to vary the decision of the Supreme Court in
the light of the preliminary ruling to be given by the Court of Justice.

9. As it had already indicated in its judgment of 11 October 1989, the
High Court considered that the case raised problems of interpretation of
Community law; it therefore stayed the proceedings and referred the following
questions to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling:

‘1. Does the organized activity or process of carrying out an abortion
or the medical termination of pregnancy come within the definition of
“services” provided for in Article 60 of the Treaty establishing the European
Economic Community?

2. In the absence of any measures providing for the approximation of the
laws of Member States concerning the organized acitivity or process of
carrying out an abortion or the medical termination of pregnancy, can a Member
State prohibit the distribution of specific information about the identity,
location and means of communication with a specified clinic or clinics in
another Member State where abortions are performed?

3. Is there a right at Community law in a person in Member State A to
distribute specific information about the identity, location and means of
communication with a specified clinic or clinics in Member State B where
abortions are performed, where the provision of abortion is prohibited under
both the Constitution and the criminal law of Member State A but is lawful
under certain conditions in Member State B?’

10. Reference is made to the Report for the Hearing for a fuller account
of the facts of the case, the course of the procedure and the written
observations submitted to the Court, which are mentioned or discussed
hereinafter only in so far as is necessary for the reasoning of the Court.

Jurisdiction of the Court

11. In its written observations, the Commission states that it is not
clear whether the order referring the questions for a preliminary ruling was
delivered in the context of the main action or in that of the proceedings for
the grant of the injunction.

12. As the Court held in the judgment in Pardini (Case 338/85 Pardini v
Ministero del commercio con l’estero [1988] ECR 2041, paragraph 11), a
national court or tribunal is not empowered to bring a matter before the Court
by way of a reference for a preliminary ruling under Article 177 of the Treaty
unless a dispute is pending before it in the context of which it is called
upon to give a decision which could take into account the preliminary ruling.

Conversely, the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to hear a reference
for a preliminary ruling when at the time it is made the procedure before the
court making it has already been terminated.

13. As far as these proceedings are concerned, if the High Court made
the reference to this Court in the context of the interlocutory proceedings,
it should be observed that the Supreme Court expressly authorized it to vary
the injunction granted in the light of the preliminary ruling to be given by
the Court of Justice. If, on the other hand, the request for a preliminary
ruling was made in the context of the main proceedings, the High Court will
have to give a decision on the substance of the case. This means that in
either case the court making the reference is called upon to give a decision
which could take into account the preliminary ruling. Consequently, it is
entitled to refer questions to the Court under Article 177 of the Treaty and
the Court has jurisdiction to entertain them.

14. S.P.U.C., for its part, argues that no question of Community Law
arises in these proceedings and that the Court should refuse to give a ruling
on the questions referred. First, the defendants in the main proceedings did
not distribute the information in question in the context of any economic
activity, which precludes the application of the Treaty rules on the freedom
to provide services whose interpretation is sought. Secondly, as the provision
of information took place entirely in Ireland and involved no other Member
State, those provisions of the Treaty cannot apply.

15. In this regard, it is sufficient to observe that the circumstances
referred to by S.P.U.C. go to the substance of the national court’s questions.
Consequently, whilst they may be taken into account in answering those
questions, they are not relevant in determining whether the Court has
jurisdiction to rule on the request for a preliminary ruling (see judgment in
Case 180/83 Moser v Land Baden-Wurttemberg [1984] ECR 2539). As a result, it
is necessary to proceed to examine the national court’s questions.

First question

16. In its first question, the national court essentially seeks to
establish whether medical termination of pregnancy, performed in accordance
with the law of the State where it is carried out, constitutes a service
within the meaning of Article 60 of the EEC Treaty.

17. According to the first paragraph of that provision, services are to
be considered to be ‘services’ within the meaning of the Treaty where they are
normally provided for remuneration, in so far as they are not governed by the
provisions relating to freedom of movement for goods, capital or persons.
Indent (d) of the second paragraph of Article 60 expressly states that
activities of the professions fall within the definition of services.

18. It must be held that termination of pregnancy, as lawfully practised
in several Member States, is a medical activity which is normally provided for
remuneration and may be carried out as part of a professional activity. In any
event, the Court has already held in the judgment in Luisi and Carbone (Joined
Case 286/82 and 26/83, Luisi and Carbone v Ministero de Tesoro [1984] ECR 377,
paragraph 16) that medical activities fall within the scope of Article 60 of
the Treaty.

19. S.P.U.C., however, maintains that the provision of abortion cannot
be regarded as being a service, on the grounds that it is grossly immoral and
involves the destruction of the life of a human being, namely the unborn
child.

20. Whatever the merits of those arguments on the moral plane, they
cannot influence the answer to the national court’s first question. It is not
for the Court to substitute its assessment for that of the legislature in
those Member States where the activities in question are practised legally.

21. Consequently, the answer to the national court’s first question must
be that medical termination of pregnancy, performed in accordance with the law
of the State in which it is carried out, constitutes a service within the
meaning of Article 60 of the Treaty.

Second and third questions

22. Having regard to the facts of the case, it must be considered that,
in its second and third questions, the national court seeks essentially to
establish whether it is contrary to Community law for a Member State in which
medical termination of pregnancy is forbidden to prohibit students
associations from distributing information about the identity and location of
clinics in another Member State where voluntary termination of pregnancy is
lawfully carried out and the means of communicating with those clinics, where
the clinics in question have no involvement in the distributions of the said
information.

23. Although the national court’s questions refer to Community law in
general, the Court takes the view that its attention should be focused on the
provisions of Article 59 et seq. of the EEC Treaty, which deal with the
freedom to provide services, and the argument concerning human rights, which
has been treated extensively in the observations submitted to the Court.

24. As regards, first, the provisions of Article 59 of the treaty, which
prohibit any restriction on the freedom to supply services, it is apparent
from the facts of the case that the link between the activity of the students
associations of which Mr Grogan and the other defendants are officers and
medical termination of pregnancies carried out in clinics in another Member
State is too tenuous for the prohibition on the distribution of information to
be capable of being regarded as a restriction within the meaning of Article 59
of the Treaty.

25. The situation in which students associations distributing the
information at issue in the main proceedings are not in cooperation with the
clinics whose addresses can be distinguished from the situation which gave
rise to the judgment in GB-INNO-BM (Case C-362/88 GB-INNO-BM v Confederation
du Commerce Luxembourgeois [1990] I-667), in which the Court held that a
prohibition on the distribution of advertising was capable of constituting a
barrier to the free movement of goods and therefore had to be examined in the
light of Articles 30, 31 and 36 of the EEC Treaty.

26. The information to which the national court’s questions refer is not
distributed on behalf of an economic operator established in another Member
State. On the contrary, the information constitutes a manifestation of freedom
of expression and of the freedom to impart and receive information which is
independent of the economic acticity carried on by clinics established in
another Member State.

27. It follows that, in any event, a prohibition on the distribution of
information in circumstances such as those which are the subject of the main
proceedings cannot be regarded as a restriction within the meaning of Article
59 of the Treaty.

28. Secondly, it is necessary to consider the argument of the defendants
in the main proceedings to the effect that the prohibition in question,
inasmuch as it is based on a constitutional amendment approved in 1983, is
contrary to Article 62 of the EEC Treaty, which provides that Member States
are not to introduce any new restrictions on the freedom to provide services
in fact attained at the date when the Treaty entered into force.

29. It is sufficient to observe, as far as that argument is concerned,
that Article 62, which is complementary to Article 59, cannot prohibit
restrictions which do not fall within the scope of Article 59.

30. Thirdly and lastly, the defendants in the main proceedings maintain
that a prohibition such as the one at issue is in breach of fundamental
rights, especially of freedom of expression and the freedom to receive and
impart information, enshrined in particular in Article 10 (1) of the European
Convention on Human Rights.

31. According to, inter alia, the judgment of 18 june 1991 in Elliniki
Radiophonia Tileorasi (case C-260/89 Elliniki Radiophonia Tileorasi v Dimotiki
Etairia Pliroforissis [1991] ECR, paragraph 42), where national legislation
falls within the field of application of Community law the Court, when
requested to give a preliminary ruling, must provide the national court with
all the elements of interpretation which are necessary in order to enable it
to assess the compatibility of the legislation with the fundamental rights –
as laid down in particular in the European Convention on Human Rights – the
observance of which the Court ensures. However, the Court has no such
jurisdiction with regard to national legislation lying outside the scope of
Community law. In view of the facts of the case and of the conclusions which
the Court has reached above with regard to the scope of Articles 59 and 62 of
the Treaty, that would appear to be true of the prohibition at issue before
the national court.

32. The reply to the national court’s second and third questions must
therefore be that it is not contrary to Community law for a Member State in
which medical termination of pregnancy is forbidden to prohibit students
associations from distributing information about the identity and location of
clinics in another Member State where voluntary termination of pregnancy is
lawfully carried out and the means of communicating with those clinics, where
the clinics in question have no involvement in the distribution of the said
information.

Costs

28. The costs incurred by Ireland and the Commission of the European
Communities, which have submitted observations to the Court, are not
recoverable. Since these proceedings are, in so far as the parties to the main
proceedings are concerned, in the nature of a step in the proceedings pending
before the national court, the decision on costs is a matter for that court.

On those grounds,

The Court,

in reply to the questions submitted to it by the High Court of Ireland,
by order of 5 March 1990, hereby rules:

1. Medical termination of pregnancy, performed in accordance with the
law of the State in which it is carried out, constitutes a service within the
meaning of Article 60 of the Treaty.

2. It is not contrary to Community law for a Member State in which
medical termination of pregnancy is forbidden to prohibit students
associations from distributing information about the identity and location of
clinics in another Member State where voluntary termination of pregnancy is
lawfully carried out and the means of communicating with those clinics, where
the clinics in question have no involvement in the distribution of the said
information.

Noot

In bovengenoemde zaak zijn met name twee belangrijke punten te
onderscheiden:

1. valt de georganiseerde werkzaamheid of verrichting van een abortus of
de medische beeindiging van een zwangerschap onder de definitie van ‘diensten’
in de zin van art. 60 EEG-Verdrag?;

2. zo ja, is het verbod tot het verspreiden van informatie daarover
zonder dat er een economische band bestaat tussen de verstrekker van die
dienst en degene die de informatie ver- schaft, een beperking van de vrijheid
van dienstverlening?

De eerste vraag wordt zowel door A-G Van Gerven als door het Hof
bevestigend beantwoord zonder daaraan al te veel woorden te wijden. Dat is
niet verbazingwekkend aangezien de afbreking van zwangerschap in bijvoorbeeld
een kliniek of ziekenhuis een medische activiteit is en tegen vergoeding
geschiedt. In het arrest Luisi en Carbone (Gev.zaken 286/82 en 26/83, Jur.
1984, 377) stelde het Hof reeds vast dat medische activiteiten binnen het
toepassingsbereik van art. 60 EEG-Verdrag vallen. Een dienst valt op grond van
art. 60 EEG-Verdrag binnen het toepassingsbereik van het vrij verkeer van
diensten indien deze ‘gewoonlijk tegen vergoeding wordt verricht’.

Van enig belang is nog dat zowel de A-G als het Hof de nadruk leggen op
het feit dat het een medische activiteit is die in ieder geval in een aantal
lidstaten rechtmatig, zij het onder een aantal voorwaarden, wordt verricht.
Zou abortus in alle lidstaten verboden zijn dan zou het waarschijnlijk niet
zijn aangemerkt als een dienst in de zin van het EEG-Verdrag. In de zaak
Horvath bijvoorbeeld (arrest van 5 februari 1981, zaak 50/80, Jur. 1981, 385)
viel de invoer van verdovende middelen niet onder het vrij verkeer van
goederen in het EEG-Verdrag omdat het een activiteit betrof die in alle
lidstaten was verboden.

Deze jurisprudentie inzake het vrij verkeer van goederen, kan mijns
inziens analoog worden toegepast op het vrij verkeer van diensten.

Overigens spreken de A-G en het Hof zich niet uit over de vraag of het
uberhaupt gerechtvaardigd is abortus geheel te verbieden. Dat deze vraag niet
wordt gesteld (de A-G stipt het probleem even aan), heeft tweeerlei
achtergrond. In de eerste plaats werd het niet in de prejudiciele vraag aan de
orde gesteld. In de tweede plaats ligt het in de lijn van de zaak Debauve
(zaak 52/79, Jur. 1980, 833) dat dit niet als een probleem werd ervaren. In
dit arrest stelde het Hof vast dat een nationaal zonder onderscheid (dat wil
zeggen niet discriminerend) toepasselijk verbod op kabel-tv-reclame om redenen
van politiek algemeen belang, gerechtvaardigd werd geacht. Hetzelfde kan van
het verbod van abortus worden gezegd.

Overigens kan een dergelijk verbod het vrij vestigingsrecht en het vrij
verkeer van diensten wel belemmeren. Het vrij vesti- gingsrecht wordt beperkt
omdat men geen abortuskliniek in Ierland mag opzetten. Het vrij verkeer van
diensten kan beperkt worden wanneer de strafbepaling van art. 58 van de
Offences Against the Person Act 1861 ook van toepassing zou zijn op vrouwen
die buiten Ierland een abortus hebben ondergaan. Dit art. bepaalt dat de
zwangere vrouw die op ongeoorloofde wijze een misval tracht te veroorzaken,
strafbaar is. Dat het vooruitzicht een straf opgelegd te kunnen krijgen een
beperking is op het vrij verkeer van diensten, lijkt mij onbetwistbaar.

Overigens lijkt deze casus niet waarschijnlijk aangezien het common law
stelsel exclusief territoriaal werkt tenzij bij wet uitdrukkelijk in een
uitzondering is voorzien. De A-G merkt hierover op dat uit de aan het Hof
voorgelegde gegevens evenmin als uit de verklaringen van partijen ter
terechtzitting voldoende duidelijk is gebleken of de Ierse wetgeving in die
situatie al dan niet een bestraffing oplegt. Helemaal uitgesloten is het dus
niet.

Meest opmerkelijke consequentie van de uitspraak is dat nu abortus onder
het begrip dienstverlening valt, de Commissie in theorie een voorstel kan doen
voor harmonisatie van de nationale bepalingen die betrekking hebben op de
beeindiging van zwangerschap. Dit zou bijvoorbeeld kunnen geschieden op basis
van art. 100A EEG-Verdrag op basis waarvan met gekwalificeerde meerderheid
wordt besloten. Het is dan ook niet voor niets dat op verzoek van Ierland aan
het Verdrag inzake de Europese Unie een protocol is gehecht waarin is
opgenomen dat geen enkele bepaling van het Verdrag inzake de Europese Unie,
van de Verdragen tot oprichting van de EG of van de Verdragen en besluiten tot
wijziging of aanvulling van deze Verdragen, afbreuk doet aan de toepassing in
Ierland van art. 40.3.3 (de bepaling inzake de bescherming van het ongeboren
leven, KB) van de Ierse grondwet.

Bij de tweede vraag wijkt het Hof af van de conclusie van de A-G. Het
Hof stelt vast dat de informatie niet wordt verstrekt ten behoeve van de
dienstverrichter in een andere lidstaat en onafhankelijk is van de economische
activiteit van de klinieken. Daaraan verbindt het Hof de conclusie dat de
informatieverstrekking over abortus geen dienstverlening is in de zin van het
EEG-Verdrag. De A-G stelt dat het aan de gemeenschapsburgers toekomende recht
in een andere lidstaat diensten in ontvangst te nemen, het recht omvat om in
de eigen lidstaat informatie te verkrijgen omtrent de in die andere lidstaat
Ø
estigde dienstverrichters. Hij verwijst daarbij naar het arrest GB-Inno-BM
waarin het Hof vaststelde dat de vrijheid van de consument om zich in een
andere lidstaat te bevoorraden in het gedrang zou komen indien hem in eigen
land de toegang tot de in het bevoorradingsland beschikbare reclame zou worden
ontzegd. Het laatstgenoemde arrest heeft betrekking op goederen. De A-G is van
oordeel dat dit niet anders hoeft te zijn dan met betrekking tot diensten. De
A-G geeft hier een ruime omschrijving van het begrip dienstenontvanger,
hetgeen aansluit bij eerdere jurisprudentie van het Hof. In het arrest Cowan
(arrest van 2 februari 1989, zaak 186/87, Jur. 1989, 195) bijvoorbeeld werd
een toerist zonder meer als een ontvanger van diensten beschouwd waardoor hij
recht had op vrij verkeer.

Het verschil tussen het arrest GB-Inno-BM en de onderhavige zaak ligt in
het feit dat de studentenorganisaties niet handelden in opdracht van de
klinieken. Het is dus afhankelijk van de band tussen de dienstverrichter en de
informatieverschaffer of een dienstenontvanger recht heeft op informatie.
Onduidelijk is nog of het een vereiste is dat tegenover een dergelijke
opdracht een vergoeding moet staan. Het begrip ‘opdracht’ duidt daar in eerste
instantie wel op.

Door deze redenering behoefde het Hof nog even geen antwoord te geven op
de principiele en politiek gevoelige vraag of het verbod om informatie te
verstrekken een gerechtvaardigde beperking is op het vrij verkeer van
diensten. Het wachten is dus op de stu- dentenvereniging (of anderen) die in
opdracht van een abortus- kliniek informatie verschaffen. Indien tegen de
verschaffers van die informatie weer een procedure wordt gestart, zal de
nationale rechter door middel van een prejudiciele vraag het verbod om deze
informatie te verspreiden opnieuw aan het Hof kunnen voorleggen.

Het Hof zal zich dan wel hebben uit te spreken over de vraag of het
verbod van informatieverstrekking verenigbaar is met de vrijheid van
meningsuiting en/of het EVRM-Verdrag.

Karin Bleeker

Rechters

Mrs Due, Mancini, O’Higgins, Moitinho de Almeida, Rodraguez Iglesias,Daez de Velasco, Slynn, Kakouris, Joliet, Schockweiler, Grevisse, Zuleeg enKapteyn; A-G van Gerven