Portuese, Aurélien , Principle of Proportionality as Principle of Economic Efficiency (December 13, 2010). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1724946
Dos varas de medir de la justicia europea cuando aplica el principio de proporcionalidad: más intenso escrutinio de las medidas nacionales que de las decisiones/legislación europeas
… the Court developed the principle of proportionality in order to protect individuals and firms from interferences of their rights from both the EU institutions and the Member States in practice, the Court has applied the principle of proportionality with more scrutiny for the latter. A double standard of application of the EU principle of proportionality appears to us… Indeed, (there is a)… judicial self-restraint of the ECJ approach when reviewing EU measures…. The language of the Court is here dominated by the concept of “manifestly disproportionate” which is necessitated by the Court for her to strike down EU measures on grounds of the principle of proportionality
¿La justificación? Escepticismo de los jueces de Luxemburgo frente a las medidas nacionales que limitan las libertades del tratado (proteccionismo)
Nevertheless, when the principle of proportionality is invoked for striking down national measures detrimental to the exercise of fundamental rights or fundamental freedoms (in the sense of the four economic freedoms enshrined in the EU Treaties), the ECJ has a tendency to (rightly?) consider the importance of the costs of such national measures at the expense of potential benefits. In other words, the probable protectionist motivation underpinning the rationale of the national measure examined leads the ECJ to adopt a very sceptical stance on the benefits (if any) of such measure… This judicial stance is rendered possible through precisely the use of the principle of proportionality which functions as a balancing tool designed to strike down the inefficiencies of (allegedly) protectionist measures enacted by Member States.
Hasta ahí, bien. Pero pasemos a la revisión judicial de las decisiones o actos de las instituciones europeas. Esta es la afirmación estándar del TJ (France and Ireland v. Commission and Roquettes Freres):
The Court has also held […] that where the evaluation of a complex economic situation is involved, the Commission and the Management Committee enjoy a wide measure of discretion. In reviewing the legality of the exercise of such discretion, the Court must confine itself to examine whether it discloses manifest error or constitutes misuse of power or a clear disregard of the limits of its discretion on the part of that institution
Piénsese en lo grave que es aplicar esta deferencia judicial a la revisión de las Decisiones de la Comisión Europea o del Consejo o del Parlamento que limitan derechos fundamentales de los ciudadanos, porque eso significa que el TJ no funciona como un auténtico Tribunal Constitucional protector de los derechos fundamentales frente a las injerencias de los poderes públicos europeos en las esferas de los ciudadanos. Véase, por ejemplo, la reciente sentencia en la que consideró legítimo que la Comisión Europea limitara y fijara los precios del roaming en toda Europa.
Pero, lo que es peor, esta deferencia judicial hacia las decisiones de las autoridades europeas es intolerable cuando se trata de Derecho administrativo sancionador, es decir, cuando se revisan, no decisiones de policy, sino decisiones que imponen multas a los particulares (ya sé que los jueces de Luxemburgo están autorizados por el TFUE para revocar completamente las multas, pero eso no refuta la crítica). El autor dice en una nota al pie que esta afirmación del TJ que se repite sistemáticamente en sus sentencias
“are present to overemphasize the fact that EU institutions are presumed to act in right manner, unless a gross error becomes obvious. But this extreme precaution of the Court for distinguishing the application of the principle of proportionality to EU measures and its application to national measures reveals the pro-‐integrationist, anti-‐challenge of EU rules by private litigants bias of the Court who tries to protect the legal corpus (EU law) from which it derives its essence and existence… having a double standard allows EU judges to expand the EU legal corpus, and thus through this the authority and legitimacy of the ultimate interpreter of this corpus – the ECJ, while reducing national obstacles to the authoritativeness of EU law.
A nuestro juicio, el autor no aprecia una distinción que nos parece del todo relevante: el análisis de proporcionalidad de las medidas europeas debe ser idénticamente estricto al que emplea cuando analiza las normas nacionales cuando la legislación/regulación/actuación de los poderes públicos europeos constituye una injerencia en los derechos de los particulares. Así, parece mucho más justificado reconocer un amplio margen de discrecionalidad a la Unión cuando impone obligaciones o limita los derechos de los Estados (y en este punto dice el autor
If the proportionality principle as reviewed by the ECJ does not allow her to engage in genuine judicial decisionmaking in a sense that the ECJ uses proportionality as “mainly negative in application” (Emiliou 1996:173), the manifestly proportionality test when it comes to review EU measures provides sufficient review for demarcating the discretionary power of EU institutions in such a way that prevents grossly inefficient legal measures. In that respect, the proportionality principle can be said to be an efficiency principle writ light when applied to EU measures)
que cuando regula o interfiere en la vida y los derechos de los particulares. Y el autor recoge algunos casos en que esta idea parece estar detrás del fallo (leche desnatada, C-‐114/76 (1977) Bela-‐Muhle v. Grows-‐Farm, 1211; C-‐116/76 (1977) Granaria, 1247; Joined Cases C-‐ 119 and 120/76 (1977) Olmuhle and Becher, 1269), publicidad del tabaco C-‐376/98 (2000) Germany v. Parliament and Council, I-‐08419 o ‘Kadi II)
Otro buen punto del autor es el siguiente
Indeed, the ECJ has not exaggeratedly claimed “public health must take precedence over any other consideration”. This would have contradicted the meaning of proportionality stricto sensu interpreted as a cost/benefit analysis since it is precisely about the weighing out of costs and benefits of different public and private interests. It is neither efficient nor justified to protect public health at any cost.
Decimos que es un buen punto porque hay muchas sentencias y resoluciones administrativas que creen que han cumplido con su obligación de motivar cuando dicen que la norma restrictiva trata de proteger la salud o la vida de los ciudadanos lo que solo aparentemente legitima cualquier sacrificio de cualquier derecho o interés de un particular.
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