EUPillar C-168/08 Laszlo Hadadi (Hadady) v Csilla Marta Mesko, épouse Hadadi (Hadady) (Third Chamber) [2009] ECR I-06871

Summary

The case concerned a husband and wife who were Hungarian and French nationals. They had moved from Hungary to France in 1980. The husband initiated divorce proceedings in Hungary in 2002 and in the following year the wife initiated divorce proceedings in France. The Hungarian court granted the divorce on 4 May 2004, i.e. three days after Hungary had become a Member State of the European Union. In 2005, the wife’s proceedings were declared inadmissible by the French court. The wife appealed and the Paris Court of Appeal held that the Hungarian judgment could not be recognised in France and that the wife’s proceedings were thus admissible. The husband then appealed arguing that the judgment had rejected the jurisdiction of the Hungarian court on the basis of Art 3(1)(a) concerning the habitual residence of the spouses, without considering whether such jurisdiction could be founded on their Hungarian nationality pursuant to Art 3(1)(b). The French Court of Cassation then stayed the proceedings and referred the following questions to the CJEU: Is Article 3(1)(b) to be interpreted as meaning that, in a situation where the spouses hold both the nationality of the State of the court seised and the nationality of another Member State, the nationality of the State of the court seised must prevail? Is Article 3(1)(b) to be interpreted as meaning that, in order to determine the court which has jurisdiction in respect of the divorce of persons having the same dual nationality, only the nationality of the Member State with which those persons have the closest links – the ‘most effective’ nationality – is to be taken into account, so that the courts of that State alone have jurisdiction on the basis of nationality, or, on the contrary, both nationalities are to be taken into account, so that the courts of those two Member States can have jurisdiction on that basis, allowing the persons concerned to choose the Member State in which to bring proceedings? The CJEU ruled that where the court of the Member State addressed had to verify, pursuant to Article 64(4), whether the court of the Member State of origin of a judgment would have had jurisdiction under Article 3(1)(b), the latter provision precluded the court of the Member State addressed from regarding spouses who each hold the nationality both of that State and of the Member State of origin as nationals only of the Member State addressed. That court must, on the contrary, take into account the fact that the spouses also hold the nationality of the Member State of origin and that, therefore, the courts of the latter could have had jurisdiction to hear the case [32-43]. The Court further held that where spouses each held the nationality of the same two Member States, Art 3(1)(b) prevented the jurisdiction of the courts of one of those Member States from being rejected on the ground that the applicant did not invoke other links with that State. On the contrary, the courts of those Member States of which the spouses held nationality had jurisdiction under that provision and the spouses could seise the court of the Member State of their choice. To sum up, where spouses have dual nationality of the same Member State, the courts of either of those States have jurisdiction to hear matrimonial proceedings and each spouse can seise the court of the Member State of his or her choice. The spouse who seises the court first will win the battle of jurisdiction due to the lis pendens rule in Art 19 [56]. This is a wise decision by the CJEU.