Council of State Ruling on Taxi Profession Regulation

Extract

[...] But an unprecedented solution of the ruling : violation of the LCI in light of the PGD. LCI = freedom of enterprise and freedom of competition. Use of PGD because territorial deliberations can set aside legislative norms. B. The protection of the LCI in light of the PDG CE President of French Polynesia : to protect the LCI and sanction the infringement, the CE chooses to resort to the PDG. 1990s: new references to PDG ('fashionable technique') multiple protection of the LCI. [...]

[...] The possibility of limiting the profession of taxi A. A decision appreciated in light of the principle of proportionality CE judgment, 1994 : the competent authority of the territory must comply with the general principles of law and in particular with the principle of the freedom of trade and industry However, principle not absolute. The CE recalls in its decision that: « The geographical and economic characteristics of the territory of French Polynesia, the competent territorial authority was legally able to limit the place of exercise of the taxi entrepreneur activity to a single island. [...]

[...] The Administrative Tribunal of Papeete, by judgment dated September will thus annul the provisions of the preamble and Article 5 which limit the exercise of the profession to the sole owner of the taxi as well as those that limit the operating license to the island for which it is granted. A cassation appeal is lodged with the Council of State. Can a territorial authority validly take a decision limiting the exercise of an industrial or commercial profession? By a judgment dated May the Council of State annulled the deliberation regulating and limiting the taxi profession. [...]

[...] The Difficult Regulation of the Taxi Profession A. An excessive and disproportionate regulation Object of the judgment: deliberation granting of a license to the ownership of a taxi + prohibiting the operator from hiring substitutes or employees meeting the required qualifications (except in the case of exceptional and discretionary derogations). Considered by the CE May 1994 as excessive limitations = infringement of this fact to the freedom of trade and industry as long as they are not envisaged by the law or go beyond the cases provided for by the law. [...]

[...] Founding principles never questioned since. - LCI already consecrated by a CEO in 1951 Daudignac. - LCI consecrated as a public liberty: Council of State. Sect October 1960, Martial de Laboulaye Judgment of the CE, 1994 : orobligation for the administration to comply within accordance with the general principles of law, and in particular the principle of the freedom of trade and industry. Definition of PGD: general non-written rules that are not formulated in any text but that the judge considers as imposing on theadministration and to theState and whose violation is considered as a violation of the rule ofright conditions to meet - applicable even in the absence of text; - cleared by thejurisprudence ; - « discovered by the judge from the state of the law and thesociety at a given instant Debate on the legal value: supra-decretal and infra-legislative. [...]