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Headnotes

1. The publication of court rulings is a public task. It is a task of the judicial power derived directly from the constitution and therefore of every court. All rulings in the publication of which the public is or may be interested must be published. Rulings worthy of publication must be prepared for disclosure to the public by means of anonymisation or neutralisation.

2. Afterwards, the rulings do not need to be published by the courts themselves but their publication may also be left to the private initiative of interested persons including the judges involved in the ruling by means of an organisational act.

3. When disclosing court rulings for purposes of publication, the courts are subject to a neutrality obligation. This corresponds with a right of the publishers of specialist journals as well as other publication media to equal treatment in journalistic competition.

4. Court rulings must be sent to permanent subscribers simultaneously, as far as possible. In case of private third parties, including the judges in their private function, disclosing the rulings must not be organised in a way that leads to certain publishing houses having a competitive advantage.

5. When disclosing the rulings, no distinction must be made based on the academic standard of the press media to which the rulings are to be supplied.

Liability under the Environmental Damage Act for damage affecting the black tern

Headnotes

1. The concept of occupational activity within the meaning of section 2 no. 4 USchadG is not limited solely to activities which are market-related or are competitive in nature, but encompasses all activities carried out in an occupational context - as opposed to a purely personal or domestic context - and, therefore, also activities carried out in the public interest pursuant to a delegation of tasks by law (see CJEU, judgment of 9 July 2020 - C-297/19 [ECLI:EU:C:2020:533] - para. 76 et seq.).

2. The concept of normal management within the meaning of section 19 (5) second sentence no. 2 BNatSchG may cover agricultural activities taken as a whole and includes activities which may be the essential complement thereof, such as irrigation and drainage (see CJEU, judgment of 9 July 2020 - C-297/19 - para. 57).

3. Management can be regarded as normal only if it is consistent with good practices such as, inter alia, good agricultural practices. Moreover, management of a site covered by the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive can be regarded as normal only if it complies with the objectives and obligations laid down in those Directives (see CJEU, judgment of 9 July 2020 - C-297/19 - para. 52 and 55).

4. The question whether management is normal must be determined from the management documents. If those documents do not contain sufficient guidance to carry out that assessment and if the normality of the measure cannot be determined on the basis of management as carried on previously either, those documents may be assessed in the light of the objectives and obligations laid down in the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive or with the assistance of domestic legal rules that have been adopted to transpose those Directives or, failing this, are compatible with the spirit and purpose of those Directives (see CJEU, judgment of 9 July 2020 - C-297/19 - para. 60).

5. Normal management of a site may result from management as carried on previously if management measures are concerned, which may be regarded as usual for the site concerned, because they have been carried out for a certain period of time. Furthermore, normal management resulting from management as carried on previously is subject to the reservation that it must not call into question compliance with the objectives and obligations laid down in the Habitats Directive and the Birds Directive (see CJEU, judgment of 9 July 2020 - C-297/19 - para. 61).

6. The principle of proportionality, also recognised as a general legal principle under EU law, may in particular be an argument against holding liable all contributing persons to take damage limitation and remedial measures under the Environmental Damage Act if the contributions of these persons to causing the damage differ. Insofar, the competent authority has discretion to select.