Joined Cases 58 and 59/13, C-58/13 and C-59/13 Angelo Alberto Torresi and Pierfrancesco Torresi v Consiglio dell’Ordine degli Avvocati di Macerata, Judgment of the Court (Grand Chamber) of 17 July 2014, not yet reported

The judgment annotated here addresses some of the most relevant issues characterizing the long-lasting, controversial debate on the scope and nature of Directive 98/5/EC in Italy. Over the past decade thousands of Italian citizens holding a law degree travelled to Spain to become lawyers and promptly returned home to practise law under the professional title of ‘abogado’.The magnitude of this phenomenon raised serious concerns within forensic class resulting in a number of countermeasures considered to be in breach of EU law. Most notably, local bar councils refused to enrol the applicants in the register of lawyers qualified abroad, thus denying them the right of establishment.As many others, the Torresi brothers were affected by this practice and complained before the National Bar Council (Consiglio Nazionale Forense or CNF).Twenty years after Gebhard, the latter decided to stay proceedings and refer to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) two questions concerning the interpretation and validity of Article 3 of the Directive. In its reply, the Grand Chamber tackles a number of intricate and intriguing topics which are worthy of consideration above and beyond the specificities of the case at hand. As will be seen, the reasoning developed by the Court, albeit linear and perfectly intelligible, is laconic and instrumental to the desired outcome: guaranteeing the full effectiveness of the Directive. The result is a concise and rather assertive ruling, with limited added value. That being said, the remainder of this contribution is organized as follows. After a brief outline of the factual background of the case (section 2), it will be useful to recall the content and rationale of the Directive, as well as the legal and practical effects of the so-called ‘Spanish solution’ (section 3). The review of the Opinion delivered by the Advocate General (section 4), and the analysis of the judgment of the Court (section 5) will follow. Lastly, some critical remarks will dwell upon the three main aspects covered by the Luxembourg judges in reaching their conclusions, namely: the notion of national court within the meaning of Article 267 TFEU, the doctrine of abuse of law and the concept of national identities pursuant to Article 4(2)TEU (section 6).