Judgment_paragraph 53 · Banco Santander SA v Mahamadou Demba and Mercedes Godoy Bonet and Rafael Ramón Escobedo Cortés v Banco de Sabadell SA (C-96/16, C-94/17)

53As regards, in the second place, the first question in Case C‑94/17, it is not obvious that that question bears no relation to the actual facts or purpose of the dispute in the main proceedings or that the problem raised is purely hypothetical. As the Advocate General notes in point 54 of his Opinion, the referring court has, in essence, stated that the appeal before it, although relating specifically to the consequences of the unfairness of the contractual term at issue in the main proceedings, also raises doubts as to the interpretation of the provisions of Directive 93/13 concerning the finding of unfairness. Moreover, it cannot be excluded that, under Spanish law, that court may or must, of its own motion, re-examine the unfairness of the contractual terms in the appeal pending before it and, more specifically, the criteria in the light of which that unfairness must be established –– a point on which it does not appear to have yet given a final ruling: that is particularly so since, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, the question whether a contractual term must be declared unfair is to be treated as a question of public policy, the national court being required, as soon as it has the legal and factual elements necessary for that task, to assess of its own motion whether a contractual term falling within the scope of Directive 93/13 is unfair (see, to that effect, judgments of 14 June 2012, Banco Español de Crédito, C‑618/10, EU:C:2012:349, paragraph 44, and of 30 May 2013, Asbeek Brusse and de Man Garabito, C‑488/11, EU:C:2013:341, paragraphs 40, 41 and 44).