The European Court of Justice on Thursday ruled that parking fines are enforceable in European Union member-states provided they are issued by a judicial court.

The ruling was made after a German national did not pay a parking ticket in Pula in 2010 and was fined, which prompted him to challenge the decision of the fine of 13 euros.

The case ended up before a Croatian court that sought legal clarification from the ECJ in the case against German Sven Klaus Tederahn.

The Croatian court wanted to know whether writs issued by notaries were covered by EU law and whether the ticket satisfied the requirements of civil and commercial EU law, international news agencies reported.

The EJC ruled that writs issued by public notaries were insufficient to be covered by EU law. But it ruled that tickets of that nature did fall under EU regulation and were enforceable if issued by an appropriate authority.

The Luxembourg-based court ruled that Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgements in civil and commercial matters "must be interpreted as meaning that enforcement proceedings brought by a company owned by a local authority against a natural person domiciled in another Member State, for the purposes of recovering an unpaid debt for parking in a public car park, the operation of which has been delegated to that company by that authority, which are not in any way punitive but merely constitute consideration for a service provided, fall within the scope of that regulation."

The Court also ruled that "Regulation No 1215/2012 must be interpreted as meaning that, in Croatia, notaries, acting within the framework of the powers conferred on them by national law enforcement proceedings based on an ‘authentic document’, do not fall within the concept of ‘court’ within the meaning of that regulation."