## Facts

- A complaint alleged RTL Belgium SA broadcast a seven-hour teleshopping program exceeding a three-hour national limit in the French Community of Belgium.
- The investigatory office of the sector regulator contacted RTL Belgium about the apparent infringement.
- RTL Belgium responded that responsibility lay with its Luxembourg parent company and argued Belgian authorities could not investigate.
- The matter proceeded to the regulator’s Licensing and Control Authority (Collège d’autorisation et de contrôle), which sought to refer questions of EU audiovisual media law to the Court of Justice via the preliminary-ruling procedure.
- A threshold dispute arose whether the referring body qualified as a “court or tribunal” permitted to make a reference under Article 267 TFEU.

## Issues

1. Whether the Belgian Licensing and Control Authority qualifies as a “court or tribunal of a Member State” under Article 267 TFEU.
2. Whether the authority satisfied the Union-law requirement of independence (external protection from pressure and internal impartiality) necessary for Article 267 standing.

## Decision

- The Court declared the request for a preliminary ruling inadmissible for lack of jurisdiction.
- The Court held the referring authority did not satisfy the independence requirement and therefore was not a “court or tribunal” within the meaning of Article 267 TFEU.
- Because the reference was invalid, the Court did not address the substantive EU media-law questions raised by the underlying teleshopping dispute.

## Legal Principles

- Whether a body is a “court or tribunal” under Article 267 TFEU is determined by Union law, assessed through factors including: establishment by law, permanence, compulsory jurisdiction, inter partes procedure, application of rules of law, and independence.
- Independence has (i) an external aspect: protection from external intervention or pressure affecting members’ judgment, and (ii) an internal aspect: impartiality and equal distance between parties.
- A regulator that is structurally and functionally integrated with the administrative apparatus responsible for investigation, supervision, and enforcement may fail the internal aspect of independence because it is not an impartial third party.
- Close functional links between an investigatory office proposing action and a connected decision-making organ imposing sanctions can undermine the separation expected of an adjudicative body for Article 267 purposes.

## Conclusion

The Court refused to entertain the preliminary reference because the Belgian audiovisual regulator’s Licensing and Control Authority lacked the independence required to be treated as a “court or tribunal” under Article 267 TFEU, leaving any EU-law questions to be raised by a qualifying national court.


RTL Belgium SA v. Collège d’autorisation et de contrôle du Conseil supérieur de l’audiovisuel, Case C-517/09 (C.J.E.U. 2010)