Referring court and Member State
Czech Republic, Third Instance, Nejvyšší soud
Summary
The case concerned a request for a preliminary ruling from the Czech Supreme Court in proceedings brought by Ms Matoušková in her capacity as court commissioner, in order to determine jurisdiction to approve the agreement on the sharing-out of the estate concluded by the guardian ad litem on behalf of minor children. The referring court asked the CJEU whether, if an agreement on the sharing-out of an estate concluded on behalf of a minor by his or her guardian ad litem required the approval of a court in order to be valid, was that decision on the part of the court a measure within the meaning of Art 1(1)(b) or a measure within the meaning of Art 1(3)(f) of the Brussels IIa Regulation. The Third Chamber agreed with AG Kokott’s observation (para 41), that legal capacity and the associated representation issues must be assessed in accordance with their own criteria and are not to be regarded as preliminary issues dependent on the legal acts in question. The appointment of a guardian for the minor children and the review of the exercise of her activity are so closely connected that it would not be appropriate to apply different jurisdictional rules, which would vary according to the subject-matter of the relevant legal act. Therefore, the fact that the approval at issue in the main proceedings has been requested in succession proceedings cannot be regarded as decisive as to whether that measure should be classified as falling within the law on succession. The need to obtain approval from the court dealing with guardianship matters is a direct consequence of the status and capacity of the minor children and constitutes a protective measure for the child relating to the administration, conservation or disposal of the child’s property in the exercise of parental responsibility within the meaning of Art 1(1)(b) and 2(e) of Brussels IIa. Such an interpretation is supported by the Lagarde Report on the Hague 1996 Convention, the scope of which corresponds with regard to parental responsibility to that of Brussels IIa. While explaining that successions must, in principle, be excluded from that convention, the Report states that, if the legislation governing the rights to succession provides for the intervention of the legal representative of the child heir, that representative must be designated in accordance with the rules of the Convention, since such a situation falls within the area of parental responsibility. That interpretation is also confirmed by the EU Succession Regulation, not applicable ratione temporis in the case in the main proceedings, which, in accordance with Recital 9 thereto, was adopted in order to cover all civil law aspects of succession to the estates of a deceased person. Art 1(2)(b) thereof excludes from its scope the legal capacity of natural persons. That Regulation governs only the aspects relating specifically to the capacity to inherit, under Art 23(2)(c) thereof, and the capacity of the person making the disposition of property upon death to make such a disposition in accordance with Art 26(1)(a) thereof. The CJEU ruled that the Regulation had to “be interpreted as meaning that the approval of an agreement for the sharing-out of an estate concluded by a guardian ad litem on behalf of minor children constitutes a measure relating to the exercise of parental responsibility, within the meaning of Arti 1(1)(b) of that regulation and thus falls within the scope of the latter, and not a measure relating to succession, within the meaning of Art 1(3)(f) thereof, excluded from the scope thereof.” It is excellent to see the CJEU acknowledging that in some respects, including scope, Brussels IIa follows the Hague 1996 Convention and expressly referring to the Explanatory Report on that Convention for guidance following the excellent advice of AG Kokott (paras 46-49). The CJEU also gave good unsolicited advice on the possible relevance of Art 12(3) of Brussels IIa.