The European Court of Justice (ECJ) and, since 1989, the European Court of First Instance (CFI) have both been charged with ensuring that the Community and its actions are governed by the rule of law. In fulfilling this function, both courts have played an enormously important role for the development of the Community and later the Union. In particular the ECJ’s case law during the first 25 years following the signing of the Treaty of Rome 50 years ago has shaped the Community in many respects through its many integration-friendly judgments.
This overview offers a short summary of the function and operation of the ECJ and the CFI from the perspective of a practicing lawyer before the courts. In addition to a description of the courts’ structure, procedure and main types of actions, this overview will also address some specific practical issues, and finally deal with some of the challenges that the courts will have to address in the coming years.
For more than 30 years, the ECJ was the only Community court. However, by 1989 the sheer number of cases, and their increasing complexity, made the workload of the court unsustainable. This led to the creation of the CFI, which was set up specifically to deal with fact-intensive disputes such as competition cases. Today it is responsible for all disputes between private parties and the Community institutions and certain disputes between members states and the institutions. In 2005, a third court, the Civil Service Tribunal (CST), came into operation, whose jurisdiction is limited to staff cases. In light of the CST’s narrow and specialised jurisdiction, it will not be dealt with in detail in this article.
The ECJ and the CFI have their seat in Luxembourg. Each court is composed of one judge from each member state, ie currently each has a total of 27 judges. The judges must be chosen from persons whose independence is beyond doubt and who possess the qualifications of the highest judicial offices (ECJ) or high judicial offices (CFI) in their respective countries. The judges are appointed by a common accord of the governments of the member states. In practice, each member state selects its judges without any interference by the other member states. The selection process varies widely among the member states. The judges are appointed for six years, and every two years the term of one-third of the judges expires. Judges can be reappointed.
The ECJ also has eight advocates-general, who are formal members of the court and who act as impartial advisors to the judges in each case. The right to propose an advocate-general rotates among the member states. Otherwise, the advocates-general are appointed in the same manner and for the same term as the judges. The CFI does not have advocates-general, however it can – but rarely does – appoint them from among its judges on an ad hoc basis.
Each judge and advocate-general is assisted by a team of up to three to four clerks, called ‘référendaires’ in ECJ jargon. These clerks need not have the same nationality of the judge whom they serve. It is not unusual for clerks to be seconded from the other EU institutions.
The composition of the courts with 27 judges from 27 different jurisdictions and more than 20 different languages poses particular challenges, both for the courts but also for the lawyers pleading before the courts. In national courts, judges not only speak the same language but also share a common legal tradition and were educated in the same legal system as the lawyers pleading before them. With respect to the ECJ and the CFI, this is different. Thus, a UK barrister, who is educated in the common law and used to the British court system, may find himself or herself pleading a case with a strong UK connection before a chamber of five judges of the ECJ emanating from France, Poland, Sweden, Greece, and Slovakia, of whom some possibly speak little or no English. Obviously, such a barrister would be well advised to take that fact into account in both his written and oral submissions. Indeed, it may often be necessary for lawyers to explain certain basic legal concepts which they might assume would be understood by their own national judges.
Both courts normally sit in chambers of three or five judges. The composition of the chambers is published on the courts’ website and in the Official Journal. The ECJ also regularly sits in the so-called ‘grand chamber’ of 13 judges, the CFI does so only in very rare instances. The presidents of the chambers are elected by the judges. The grand chamber is presided over by the president of the respective court.
The ECJ and CFI are each headed by a president, elected for a period of three years by peer vote from among each court’s members. The president is responsible for overseeing the work of the courts and representing his or her court in its dealing with the outside world. He or she also presides at hearings and deliberations of the grand chamber or the full court. Moreover, the president decides on certain special procedures such as applications for interim measures. Finally, the president decides on the allocation of the cases to the different chambers and the appointment of the reporting judge, who will be the lead judge for a case.
Each court has a registry, headed by a registrar, who provides the basic administrative support to their respective courts by ensuring compliance with the formal procedural rules on pleadings. In addition, they are responsible for keeping the register of cases, notifying all interested parties of any relevant steps in the procedure, drawing up the minutes of hearings and taking care of all the required court publications.
The registry is the only point of contact between a lawyer representing a party before the courts. The registry will do a lot to help lawyers seeking informal guidance on procedural issues. Importantly, while in many member states’ courts lawyers can contact the judges on pending cases, it is inappropriate for a lawyer to contact the ECJ and CFI judges or their clerks to discuss issues in relation to a particular case.
Like any other EU institution, the ECJ and the CFI act within the limits of the powers conferred to them by the founding treaties. The treaties specify the types of cases the courts are responsible for as well as the division of jurisdiction between the two courts. The division of the jurisdiction between the ECJ and the CFI has evolved since the CFI’s creation in 1989, gradually expanding the CFI’s jurisdiction.
Broadly speaking, the ECJ’s jurisdiction covers all reference cases, all infringement cases, as well as direct actions between the institutions and member states, between member states, and between institutions relating to the Communities’ legislative activities. The ECJ also has jurisdiction for appeals on points of law against decisions by the CFI.
The CFI’s jurisdiction covers all direct actions initiated by a private party against any of the Community institutions, including the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (relating to Community trademarks or design rights), and direct actions between member states and Community institutions or between Community institutions challenging Community executive acts (such as state aid decisions).
Reference cases start before a member state’s court. Whenever a question arises as to the validity or interpretation of Community law in a case before a member state court – whether it be a provision of the founding treaties or of secondary law – the national court can submit a question to the ECJ. If it is the national court of last instance, it is obliged to do so. The ECJ will then provide the national court with an answer, which is generally a binding interpretation of the treaties or secondary Community legislation, not only for the national court in the case at issue, but for all national courts and the other Community institutions.
The ECJ takes great care not to interfere with the competences of the national courts. Thus, the ECJ will only answer the national court’s question as to the interpretation of Community law, leaving it for the national court to draw the consequences for the specific dispute. If the question by the national court does not relate to the interpretation of Community law, but rather concerns national law, the ECJ will decline to answer.
Importantly, only the ECJ and not a national law court can declare invalid a Community act. Thus, if a national court considers a Community law act void, it must put a respective question to the ECJ but cannot itself declare the act void. On the other hand, if in a dispute before a national court one party invokes the illegality of a Community law act, and if the national court considers the argument ill founded, that court can dismiss it without having to submit a reference question to the ECJ.
Many of the ECJ’s seminal judgments were rendered in reference cases, including judgments on the superiority of Community law over national law, the free movement of goods, the direct effect of directives, or the obligation of member states to pay damages for the violation of Community law.
The three most important types of direct actions are actions for annulment, damages actions, and infringement proceedings.
Actions for annulment
Actions for annulment are by far the most common form of direct actions. Any Community law act terminating a proceeding can be challenged with an action for annulment. However, intermediate measures, such as the opening of a competition investigation or the decision to enter into a Phase II investigation in a merger clearance, are not subject to a separate challenge before the Community courts.
The party bringing the action must have standing. In this respect, one has to distinguish between privileged and non-privileged applicants. The privileged applicants are the member states and the Community institutions, and they always have standing. All other parties are non-privileged applicants, and they can only challenge acts specifically addressed to them or acts which, if not specifically addressed to them, concern them directly and individually.
Regrettably, the courts’ case law on individual concern is very restrictive, making it virtually impossible for private parties to challenge measures of general application, such as directives and regulations, even if these acts directly and deeply affect the individuals, for example by prohibiting or restricting certain products or activities. Thus, judicial review of such acts is only possible through a reference case. This poses significant problems from the point of view of access to justice, particularly if a party must violate the law in order to provoke a challengeable national act needed for the initiation of a case before a national court. The restrictive case law also makes no sense from the point of view of judicial economy because, as discussed above, the national court cannot declare the Community law act void. Addressing these concerns regarding access to justice, the CFI and one of the ECJ’s advocates-general proposed a different test a few years ago. Unfortunately, the ECJ decided to maintain the old test.
Fortunately, however, in some member states the possibility exists to challenge an EU regulation or directive before a national court and to request the national court to submit a respective question to the ECJ. In particular, the High Court in London has submitted questions regarding the validity of EU regulations and directives to the ECJ, even before the time limit for the implementation of a directive had expired or a regulation came into force.
Importantly, the only remedy in an action for annulment is the annulment of the challenged act, but not an order by the court against the defendant to adopt a new act with a specific content or an order amending the challenged act. However, under certain strict conditions, it is possible to request a partial annulment of an act. Finally, when implementing the court’s judgment, the Community institutions must take into account not only the judgment’s decision but also its substantive reasoning. Thus, a judgment annulling a Community act can lead to an indirect obligation to adopt a new act with specified content.
Actions for damages
Anyone believing he or she has suffered damage as a result of a Community act can seek compensation from the Community. In order to succeed with such an action, the plaintiff must show that the act at issue constitutes a sufficiently serious Community law violation, the applicant has suffered damage, and a causal link exists between the act and the damages How serious the violation of Community law must be in order to qualify as sufficiently serious depends on the degree of discretion that the Community institution enjoyed when issuing the act complained of. Put simply, the wider the discretion, the more serious the Community violation will have to be.
Infringement proceedings
The Commission regularly initiates infringement proceedings against member states for failure to comply with their Community law obligations. Infringement proceedings require that the Commission first sends to the member state a reasoned opinion detailing the allegations of an infringement of Community law. If the member state then fails to comply with its obligation, the Commission can bring an action against the member state before the Community courts. If the member state does not comply with a judgment in an infringement proceeding, the Commission can request the court to impose a daily penalty payment on the member state until the member state complies. Importantly, private parties cannot participate in infringement cases nor can they force the Commission to start infringement proceedings.
The procedure before the ECJ depends on the type of action. In reference cases, the national court submits its question, together with the complete case file, to the ECJ. The ECJ translates the questions into all the official languages of the EU. The ECJ then officially notifies the parties of the case before the national court, the member states, and the institutions of the case, setting them a non-extendable deadline of two months to lodge written observations. This is the only round of written pleadings, the parties have no chance to respond in writing to the other submissions but can only address them at the oral hearing stage. This is particularly problematic in cases concerning the legality of a Community act, as the party challenging the act will have no chance to address in writing the arguments of the institution(s) defending the act.
Direct actions commence with the filing of an application at the registry. The application is served on the defendant, which will then lodge its defence. In the vast majority of cases, this first round of written pleadings is followed by a second round consisting of a reply and a rejoinder. Except in cases of interventions, the rejoinder closes the written procedure.
In both reference cases and direct actions, the case will be assigned to a reporting judge. The reporting judge is responsible for preparing the oral hearing and later for drafting the judgment. After the closure of the written procedure, the court will ask the parties whether they request an oral procedure. If a party wants on oral hearing, it must then file an application setting out the reasons why it wishes to be heard.
Where the case is to proceed to the oral stage, the reporting judge draws up a report for the hearing. In the past, the report contained a detailed summary of the facts and applicable law, the forms of order sought, and the parties’ pleas and arguments. This was very useful for the lawyers as it enabled them to ascertain whether the judges correctly understood their arguments. It also allowed experienced lawyers to see which aspects of the case the judges were most interested in. Recently, the report for the hearing has been significantly shortened and no longer contains a summary of the legal arguments. However, in some cases the court does indicate in its invitation to the oral hearing those arguments the parties should address. The lawyers also meet with the judges in chambers a few minutes prior to the hearing. Judges may use this meeting to indicate those issues in the case they are most interested in, as well as the issues they don’t want to hear about. If this happens, lawyers are well advised to be flexible and adapt their pleadings.
The oral hearing will be a disappointment for those advocates who are used to an interactive court. Typically, each party will present its case in an oral submission within the time allocated, normally between 15 and 30 minutes. Questions from the bench are rare. At the end of the hearing, each party will be given a rebuttal time to address the arguments of the other parties.
Importantly, the judges do not deliberate and decide on the case immediately after the oral hearing. The deliberations will only begin after the advocate-general has delivered his or her opinion, which may be several weeks or sometimes even months after the oral hearing. The opinion of the advocate-general is not binding upon the judges, although the judges follow the advocate-general in the majority of cases.
The deliberations of the court take place in closed sessions and without the assistance of interpreters. The judges must agree on a single judgment as there are no concurring or dissenting opinions. The deliberation process can take several months. The judgment is then delivered in open court.
The written procedure in appeals against judgments of the CFI is similar to that of direct actions. The appeal is served upon all parties who were parties to the proceedings before the CFI. The parties must then file a response within a two month deadline. This deadline also applies to the interveners before the CFI, who are automatically parties to the appeal before the ECJ. After the filing of the response briefs, the appellant can request permission to file a reply brief. If granted, the respondents will also be given permission to file a rejoinder.
The CFI, of course, only deals with direct actions. While the written procedure of the CFI is virtually identical to that before the ECJ, there are important differences with respect to the oral hearing. The way in which the hearing is conducted and prepared reflects that the CFI was originally set up to deal with complex factual cases. It shows a genuine effort by the judges to explore fully the factual and legal aspects of a case.
In preparation of the hearing, the parties often receive detailed questions, to which they are required to respond either in writing before the hearing or orally at the hearing. The judges also frequently request the parties to submit additional documents prior to the hearing.
The hearings before the CFI also start with pleadings by the parties. However, these pleadings are then followed by a detailed questioning session. While the reporting judge normally plays the most active role during these questioning sessions, it is not uncommon that other judges will ask questions, often relating to very detailed issues. The judges normally master the file very well, and any lawyer pleading before the CFI should be well prepared. If not, the hearing can turn out to be an embarrassing and unpleasant experience.
Importantly, the judges not only ask factual questions but also often explain their views on the legal issues raised by the case. This allows the parties to address the court’s views and again reflects the court’s desire to ensure that every party’s arguments are fully heard.
Another important difference from the proceedings before the ECJ is that the judges of the CFI start their deliberation immediately after the oral hearing as there is no advocate-general. However, recently the delays between the oral hearing and the issuing of the judgment have become increasingly long, often exceeding six months or even a year. As is the case with the ECJ, there will be a single judgment delivered in open court with no concurring or dissenting opinions.
Described above are the basic principles of procedures before the ECJ and the CFI. There are however some specific procedures, the most important of which are interventions, interim measures, and the accelerated procedure.
Interventions
Neither the ECJ nor the CFI allow the submission of amicus curia briefs, but they do allow interventions in support of the pleas of one of the parties. The Community institutions and the member states can intervene in every case before the ECJ and the CFI without having to explain why. All other parties can only intervene in direct actions, including appeals, between private parties and the Community institutions. Thus, they cannot intervene in reference cases or in cases between the institutions and a member state, or between member states or between the institutions.
Moreover, in order to be admitted as an intervener, a private party must show that it has a sufficiently direct interest in the outcome of the case. In this respect, the courts distinguish between interventions by individuals or undertakings on the one hand, and representative trade associations on the other. Individuals or undertakings must show that they have a direct interest in the upholding or annulment of the act at issue. However, representative trade associations must merely prove that the case raises general legal questions as a result of which the court’s judgment is liable to affect the interests of the associations’ members.
Admitted interveners will get full access to the file, with the exception of confidential information. They have the right to submit a written intervention brief and to make submissions at the oral hearing.
In order to inform potential interveners about pending cases, the lodging of every case is published in the Official Journal. The intervention application must be filed within six weeks following the publication of the case in the Official Journal. An intervener who misses that deadline may still be admitted, but will enjoy limited rights. Specifically, it can make oral submissions at the hearing but will not get access to the file and has no right to make a written submission.
Interim measures
Applications for annulment do not have ‘suspensory’ effect. Thus, if a party files an application for annulment, it must still comply with the obligations resulting from the challenged act. Parties can, however, request the court to issue interim measures, including a suspension of the challenged act.
The standard for interim measures applications is very high, and the success rate very low. The applicant must show a prima facie case, that in absence of interim measures it would suffer irreparable harm, and that the balance of interests speaks in favour of interim measures. In practice, the irreparable harm requirement is an almost insurmountable hurdle, as the courts consider mere financial damage insufficient, because this is reparable through a subsequent damages action. This means that, for all practical purposes, the applicant must show that interim measures are necessary for it not to go bankrupt.
Importantly, an application for interim measures can only be filed in connection with a main action, in particular, an action for annulment. It cannot be filed before the lodging of the action for annulment, but it can be filed at any time thereafter. It can also be re-filed in case of changed circumstances.
Applications for interim measures are normally dealt with by the presidents of the ECJ and the CFI, who decide by way of a reasoned order, either with or without an oral hearing.
Accelerated procedure
A few years ago, the CFI introduced the possibility of an accelerated procedure, specifically with merger control cases in mind. The accelerated procedure has been successfully used for these but also other types of cases. Under the accelerated procedure, there is only one round of written pleadings with very short delays, followed by an extensive oral hearing. The aim is to issue a judgment within six to nine months.
The accelerated procedure must be requested by the applicant or the defendant, together with the filing of the application or the defence. The party requesting the accelerated procedure must show that the case is urgent and is suitable for the accelerated procedure. This requires that the case only raises well defined legal or factual issues that can be dealt with within the context of an accelerated procedure. A party requesting an accelerated procedure can limit its case to specific pleas should accelerated procedure be granted, while maintaining all pleas, in the event the case is decided pursuant to the normal procedure.
Pursuing a case before the ECJ and the CFI is different in many respects from proceedings before national courts. There are three particularly important issues worthy of highlighting.
The most important issue is that the ECJ and CFI are multi-linguistic courts. Regarding the linguistic regime, one has to distinguish between the official language of a case and the courts’ internal working language.
The language of the case can be any of the Community’s official languages. In a reference case, the language of the case is determined by the language of the case before the national court. In a direct action, the language of the case is determined by the language in which the application is lodged. In principle, all documents in the case must be lodged in the language of the case, and the language of the case is also used at the oral hearing. However, member states can make their written and oral submissions in their own language, which will be translated into the language of the case.
Since the judges cannot work in all of the more than 20 different languages, both courts have an internal working language, which by accident and for historical reasons is French. In 1957, the then 6 judges of the ECJ all spoke French, and agreed that this should be their internal working language.
The use of French as the courts’ working language means that all written submissions lodged in another language will be translated into French. The judges and their clerks also normally work on the basis of the French translation rather than the original language version. Lawyers submitting pleadings in another language should bear this in mind when drafting their pleadings and write their pleadings in a simple and clear manner in order to avoid translation errors. Parties also have the chance to submit their arguments themselves in a French translation instead of having the court translate their pleadings. In addition, at many oral hearings the judges will listen to the pleadings by simultaneous translation. Lawyers who speak too quickly or use very complicated language stand to risk that not all of their oral submissions will be properly understood.
In a direct action, the applicant must set out all pleas in its application and submit all evidence, in particular written evidence, together with the application. It may not introduce new pleas and new evidence later in the proceedings unless the new pleas and new evidence are based upon circumstances of which it could not have been aware at the time it lodged the application. The same rule applies to the defendant, who must also set out its arguments and pleas in its defence.
This preclusion rule often forces the lawyers to make difficult choices. On the one hand, they may want to concentrate their application or defence on the key pleas and arguments. On the other, they certainly do not want to read in the judgment that an argument was rejected because it was submitted too late. The prohibition on adding new documentary evidence later in the proceedings may also lead to the parties submitting an unnecessary amount of documents with the application or defence as a matter of precaution.
Both the ECJ and the CFI have issued detailed instructions – called practice directions – for the submission of written briefs, which regulate such issues as page margins, fonts to be used, the numbering of annexes, and the drafting of the list of annexes. The CFI’s registry enforces the practice directives particularly vigorously. If pleadings do not comply with the practice directions, the registry will request the party to bring its pleadings in order and not serve the pleadings upon the other parties in the meantime.
One of the most controversial issues regarding the practice directions is the page limit they impose on written pleadings: 50 pages for the application and the defence, and 25 pages for the reply and the rejoinder. Importantly, while the registry tries to enforce these page limits strictly – requesting parties to shorten pleadings if they exceed the page limits – the page limits are not legally binding. It is therefore for each party to decide whether it wishes to insist on longer pleadings, or whether it is prepared to shorten its pleadings. Indeed in many factually complex cases where the reasoning of the challenged act may be several hundred pages, and the file several thousand pages, it is virtually impossible to set out the case in a meaningful manner within 50 pages.
The ECJ and the CFI have played a pre-eminent role in the development of Community law, and therefore the Community at large. However, both courts face significant challenges for the coming years which they need to address in order to ensure their continued success.
The most important challenge is the duration of the proceedings, which have reached unacceptable levels. For example, the CFI issued 21 judgments in the four months between 1 November 2006 and 28 February 2007 in matters other than trademark and staff cases. Of these 21 cases, one started in 2001, 11 in 2002, five in 2003, and four in 2004. None of the cases started in 2005 or 2006. This confirms that the current length of state aid, competition or trade cases is three to five years. This can amount to a denial of effective judicial protection.
The creation of the CST will certainly free some of the CFI’s resources, but this will not be enough. The most important factor causing delays is the language regime. While it is important to maintain the opportunity for parties to lodge cases in any of the Community’s languages, the courts may wish to think about reforming their internal working language. In particular, many of the very complex and large cases, notably in the areas of state aid, competition, and trade, are lodged in English which probably is also the most widely spoken language among the courts’ judges. Allowing English as a second internal working language would significantly reduce the need for translation and could therefore significantly speed up these proceedings.
The second most important challenge for the courts is to maintain the quality of their judgments. Community law has reached an enormously high degree of complexity. While practising lawyers tend to be highly specialised, the judges of the ECJ and the CFI have to deal on a daily basis with all aspects of Community law. So far, both courts have rejected the idea of specialised chambers on the ground that this could jeopardise the uniformity of Community law. It is doubtful whether and at what price this policy can be continued. Indeed, the question of specialised competition chambers at the CFI, or even a specialised competition court, is very much on the agenda. Specialisation within the CFI, in particular, could also lead to faster judgments.
The European Courts
Dr Georg Berrisch, partner at Covington & Burling, Brussels
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) and, since 1989, the European Court of First Instance (CFI) have both been charged with ensuring that the Community and its actions are governed by the rule of law. In fulfilling this function, both courts have played an enormously important role for the development of the Community and later the Union. In particular the ECJ’s case law during the first 25 years following the signing of the Treaty of Rome 50 years ago has shaped the Community in many respects through its many integration-friendly judgments.
This overview offers a short summary of the function and operation of the ECJ and the CFI from the perspective of a practicing lawyer before the courts. In addition to a description of the courts’ structure, procedure and main types of actions, this overview will also address some specific practical issues, and finally deal with some of the challenges that the courts will have to address in the coming years.
STRUCTURE OF THE COMMUNITY COURTS
For more than 30 years, the ECJ was the only Community court. However, by 1989 the sheer number of cases, and their increasing complexity, made the workload of the court unsustainable. This led to the creation of the CFI, which was set up specifically to deal with fact-intensive disputes such as competition cases. Today it is responsible for all disputes between private parties and the Community institutions and certain disputes between members states and the institutions. In 2005, a third court, the Civil Service Tribunal (CST), came into operation, whose jurisdiction is limited to staff cases. In light of the CST’s narrow and specialised jurisdiction, it will not be dealt with in detail in this article.
Seat, composition and appointment of judges
The ECJ and the CFI have their seat in Luxembourg. Each court is composed of one judge from each member state, ie currently each has a total of 27 judges. The judges must be chosen from persons whose independence is beyond doubt and who possess the qualifications of the highest judicial offices (ECJ) or high judicial offices (CFI) in their respective countries. The judges are appointed by a common accord of the governments of the member states. In practice, each member state selects its judges without any interference by the other member states. The selection process varies widely among the member states. The judges are appointed for six years, and every two years the term of one-third of the judges expires. Judges can be reappointed.
The ECJ also has eight advocates-general, who are formal members of the court and who act as impartial advisors to the judges in each case. The right to propose an advocate-general rotates among the member states. Otherwise, the advocates-general are appointed in the same manner and for the same term as the judges. The CFI does not have advocates-general, however it can – but rarely does – appoint them from among its judges on an ad hoc basis.
Each judge and advocate-general is assisted by a team of up to three to four clerks, called ‘référendaires’ in ECJ jargon. These clerks need not have the same nationality of the judge whom they serve. It is not unusual for clerks to be seconded from the other EU institutions.
The composition of the courts with 27 judges from 27 different jurisdictions and more than 20 different languages poses particular challenges, both for the courts but also for the lawyers pleading before the courts. In national courts, judges not only speak the same language but also share a common legal tradition and were educated in the same legal system as the lawyers pleading before them. With respect to the ECJ and the CFI, this is different. Thus, a UK barrister, who is educated in the common law and used to the British court system, may find himself or herself pleading a case with a strong UK connection before a chamber of five judges of the ECJ emanating from France, Poland, Sweden, Greece, and Slovakia, of whom some possibly speak little or no English. Obviously, such a barrister would be well advised to take that fact into account in both his written and oral submissions. Indeed, it may often be necessary for lawyers to explain certain basic legal concepts which they might assume would be understood by their own national judges.
Chambers and presidents
Both courts normally sit in chambers of three or five judges. The composition of the chambers is published on the courts’ website and in the Official Journal. The ECJ also regularly sits in the so-called ‘grand chamber’ of 13 judges, the CFI does so only in very rare instances. The presidents of the chambers are elected by the judges. The grand chamber is presided over by the president of the respective court.
The ECJ and CFI are each headed by a president, elected for a period of three years by peer vote from among each court’s members. The president is responsible for overseeing the work of the courts and representing his or her court in its dealing with the outside world. He or she also presides at hearings and deliberations of the grand chamber or the full court. Moreover, the president decides on certain special procedures such as applications for interim measures. Finally, the president decides on the allocation of the cases to the different chambers and the appointment of the reporting judge, who will be the lead judge for a case.
The registry
Each court has a registry, headed by a registrar, who provides the basic administrative support to their respective courts by ensuring compliance with the formal procedural rules on pleadings. In addition, they are responsible for keeping the register of cases, notifying all interested parties of any relevant steps in the procedure, drawing up the minutes of hearings and taking care of all the required court publications.
The registry is the only point of contact between a lawyer representing a party before the courts. The registry will do a lot to help lawyers seeking informal guidance on procedural issues. Importantly, while in many member states’ courts lawyers can contact the judges on pending cases, it is inappropriate for a lawyer to contact the ECJ and CFI judges or their clerks to discuss issues in relation to a particular case.
Division of jurisdiction between the ECJ and the CFI
Like any other EU institution, the ECJ and the CFI act within the limits of the powers conferred to them by the founding treaties. The treaties specify the types of cases the courts are responsible for as well as the division of jurisdiction between the two courts. The division of the jurisdiction between the ECJ and the CFI has evolved since the CFI’s creation in 1989, gradually expanding the CFI’s jurisdiction.
Broadly speaking, the ECJ’s jurisdiction covers all reference cases, all infringement cases, as well as direct actions between the institutions and member states, between member states, and between institutions relating to the Communities’ legislative activities. The ECJ also has jurisdiction for appeals on points of law against decisions by the CFI.
The CFI’s jurisdiction covers all direct actions initiated by a private party against any of the Community institutions, including the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (relating to Community trademarks or design rights), and direct actions between member states and Community institutions or between Community institutions challenging Community executive acts (such as state aid decisions).
TYPES OF ACTIONS
Reference cases
Reference cases start before a member state’s court. Whenever a question arises as to the validity or interpretation of Community law in a case before a member state court – whether it be a provision of the founding treaties or of secondary law – the national court can submit a question to the ECJ. If it is the national court of last instance, it is obliged to do so. The ECJ will then provide the national court with an answer, which is generally a binding interpretation of the treaties or secondary Community legislation, not only for the national court in the case at issue, but for all national courts and the other Community institutions.
The ECJ takes great care not to interfere with the competences of the national courts. Thus, the ECJ will only answer the national court’s question as to the interpretation of Community law, leaving it for the national court to draw the consequences for the specific dispute. If the question by the national court does not relate to the interpretation of Community law, but rather concerns national law, the ECJ will decline to answer.
Importantly, only the ECJ and not a national law court can declare invalid a Community act. Thus, if a national court considers a Community law act void, it must put a respective question to the ECJ but cannot itself declare the act void. On the other hand, if in a dispute before a national court one party invokes the illegality of a Community law act, and if the national court considers the argument ill founded, that court can dismiss it without having to submit a reference question to the ECJ.
Many of the ECJ’s seminal judgments were rendered in reference cases, including judgments on the superiority of Community law over national law, the free movement of goods, the direct effect of directives, or the obligation of member states to pay damages for the violation of Community law.
Direct actions
The three most important types of direct actions are actions for annulment, damages actions, and infringement proceedings.
Actions for annulment
Actions for annulment are by far the most common form of direct actions. Any Community law act terminating a proceeding can be challenged with an action for annulment. However, intermediate measures, such as the opening of a competition investigation or the decision to enter into a Phase II investigation in a merger clearance, are not subject to a separate challenge before the Community courts.
The party bringing the action must have standing. In this respect, one has to distinguish between privileged and non-privileged applicants. The privileged applicants are the member states and the Community institutions, and they always have standing. All other parties are non-privileged applicants, and they can only challenge acts specifically addressed to them or acts which, if not specifically addressed to them, concern them directly and individually.
Regrettably, the courts’ case law on individual concern is very restrictive, making it virtually impossible for private parties to challenge measures of general application, such as directives and regulations, even if these acts directly and deeply affect the individuals, for example by prohibiting or restricting certain products or activities. Thus, judicial review of such acts is only possible through a reference case. This poses significant problems from the point of view of access to justice, particularly if a party must violate the law in order to provoke a challengeable national act needed for the initiation of a case before a national court. The restrictive case law also makes no sense from the point of view of judicial economy because, as discussed above, the national court cannot declare the Community law act void. Addressing these concerns regarding access to justice, the CFI and one of the ECJ’s advocates-general proposed a different test a few years ago. Unfortunately, the ECJ decided to maintain the old test.
Fortunately, however, in some member states the possibility exists to challenge an EU regulation or directive before a national court and to request the national court to submit a respective question to the ECJ. In particular, the High Court in London has submitted questions regarding the validity of EU regulations and directives to the ECJ, even before the time limit for the implementation of a directive had expired or a regulation came into force.
Importantly, the only remedy in an action for annulment is the annulment of the challenged act, but not an order by the court against the defendant to adopt a new act with a specific content or an order amending the challenged act. However, under certain strict conditions, it is possible to request a partial annulment of an act. Finally, when implementing the court’s judgment, the Community institutions must take into account not only the judgment’s decision but also its substantive reasoning. Thus, a judgment annulling a Community act can lead to an indirect obligation to adopt a new act with specified content.
Actions for damages
Anyone believing he or she has suffered damage as a result of a Community act can seek compensation from the Community. In order to succeed with such an action, the plaintiff must show that the act at issue constitutes a sufficiently serious Community law violation, the applicant has suffered damage, and a causal link exists between the act and the damages How serious the violation of Community law must be in order to qualify as sufficiently serious depends on the degree of discretion that the Community institution enjoyed when issuing the act complained of. Put simply, the wider the discretion, the more serious the Community violation will have to be.
Infringement proceedings
The Commission regularly initiates infringement proceedings against member states for failure to comply with their Community law obligations. Infringement proceedings require that the Commission first sends to the member state a reasoned opinion detailing the allegations of an infringement of Community law. If the member state then fails to comply with its obligation, the Commission can bring an action against the member state before the Community courts. If the member state does not comply with a judgment in an infringement proceeding, the Commission can request the court to impose a daily penalty payment on the member state until the member state complies. Importantly, private parties cannot participate in infringement cases nor can they force the Commission to start infringement proceedings.
THE PROCEDURE
Overview of the procedure before ECJ
The procedure before the ECJ depends on the type of action. In reference cases, the national court submits its question, together with the complete case file, to the ECJ. The ECJ translates the questions into all the official languages of the EU. The ECJ then officially notifies the parties of the case before the national court, the member states, and the institutions of the case, setting them a non-extendable deadline of two months to lodge written observations. This is the only round of written pleadings, the parties have no chance to respond in writing to the other submissions but can only address them at the oral hearing stage. This is particularly problematic in cases concerning the legality of a Community act, as the party challenging the act will have no chance to address in writing the arguments of the institution(s) defending the act.
Direct actions commence with the filing of an application at the registry. The application is served on the defendant, which will then lodge its defence. In the vast majority of cases, this first round of written pleadings is followed by a second round consisting of a reply and a rejoinder. Except in cases of interventions, the rejoinder closes the written procedure.
In both reference cases and direct actions, the case will be assigned to a reporting judge. The reporting judge is responsible for preparing the oral hearing and later for drafting the judgment. After the closure of the written procedure, the court will ask the parties whether they request an oral procedure. If a party wants on oral hearing, it must then file an application setting out the reasons why it wishes to be heard.
Where the case is to proceed to the oral stage, the reporting judge draws up a report for the hearing. In the past, the report contained a detailed summary of the facts and applicable law, the forms of order sought, and the parties’ pleas and arguments. This was very useful for the lawyers as it enabled them to ascertain whether the judges correctly understood their arguments. It also allowed experienced lawyers to see which aspects of the case the judges were most interested in. Recently, the report for the hearing has been significantly shortened and no longer contains a summary of the legal arguments. However, in some cases the court does indicate in its invitation to the oral hearing those arguments the parties should address. The lawyers also meet with the judges in chambers a few minutes prior to the hearing. Judges may use this meeting to indicate those issues in the case they are most interested in, as well as the issues they don’t want to hear about. If this happens, lawyers are well advised to be flexible and adapt their pleadings.
The oral hearing will be a disappointment for those advocates who are used to an interactive court. Typically, each party will present its case in an oral submission within the time allocated, normally between 15 and 30 minutes. Questions from the bench are rare. At the end of the hearing, each party will be given a rebuttal time to address the arguments of the other parties.
Importantly, the judges do not deliberate and decide on the case immediately after the oral hearing. The deliberations will only begin after the advocate-general has delivered his or her opinion, which may be several weeks or sometimes even months after the oral hearing. The opinion of the advocate-general is not binding upon the judges, although the judges follow the advocate-general in the majority of cases.
The deliberations of the court take place in closed sessions and without the assistance of interpreters. The judges must agree on a single judgment as there are no concurring or dissenting opinions. The deliberation process can take several months. The judgment is then delivered in open court.
The written procedure in appeals against judgments of the CFI is similar to that of direct actions. The appeal is served upon all parties who were parties to the proceedings before the CFI. The parties must then file a response within a two month deadline. This deadline also applies to the interveners before the CFI, who are automatically parties to the appeal before the ECJ. After the filing of the response briefs, the appellant can request permission to file a reply brief. If granted, the respondents will also be given permission to file a rejoinder.
Overview of the procedure before the CFI
The CFI, of course, only deals with direct actions. While the written procedure of the CFI is virtually identical to that before the ECJ, there are important differences with respect to the oral hearing. The way in which the hearing is conducted and prepared reflects that the CFI was originally set up to deal with complex factual cases. It shows a genuine effort by the judges to explore fully the factual and legal aspects of a case.
In preparation of the hearing, the parties often receive detailed questions, to which they are required to respond either in writing before the hearing or orally at the hearing. The judges also frequently request the parties to submit additional documents prior to the hearing.
The hearings before the CFI also start with pleadings by the parties. However, these pleadings are then followed by a detailed questioning session. While the reporting judge normally plays the most active role during these questioning sessions, it is not uncommon that other judges will ask questions, often relating to very detailed issues. The judges normally master the file very well, and any lawyer pleading before the CFI should be well prepared. If not, the hearing can turn out to be an embarrassing and unpleasant experience.
Importantly, the judges not only ask factual questions but also often explain their views on the legal issues raised by the case. This allows the parties to address the court’s views and again reflects the court’s desire to ensure that every party’s arguments are fully heard.
Another important difference from the proceedings before the ECJ is that the judges of the CFI start their deliberation immediately after the oral hearing as there is no advocate-general. However, recently the delays between the oral hearing and the issuing of the judgment have become increasingly long, often exceeding six months or even a year. As is the case with the ECJ, there will be a single judgment delivered in open court with no concurring or dissenting opinions.
Specific procedures
Described above are the basic principles of procedures before the ECJ and the CFI. There are however some specific procedures, the most important of which are interventions, interim measures, and the accelerated procedure.
Interventions
Neither the ECJ nor the CFI allow the submission of amicus curia briefs, but they do allow interventions in support of the pleas of one of the parties. The Community institutions and the member states can intervene in every case before the ECJ and the CFI without having to explain why. All other parties can only intervene in direct actions, including appeals, between private parties and the Community institutions. Thus, they cannot intervene in reference cases or in cases between the institutions and a member state, or between member states or between the institutions.
Moreover, in order to be admitted as an intervener, a private party must show that it has a sufficiently direct interest in the outcome of the case. In this respect, the courts distinguish between interventions by individuals or undertakings on the one hand, and representative trade associations on the other. Individuals or undertakings must show that they have a direct interest in the upholding or annulment of the act at issue. However, representative trade associations must merely prove that the case raises general legal questions as a result of which the court’s judgment is liable to affect the interests of the associations’ members.
Admitted interveners will get full access to the file, with the exception of confidential information. They have the right to submit a written intervention brief and to make submissions at the oral hearing.
In order to inform potential interveners about pending cases, the lodging of every case is published in the Official Journal. The intervention application must be filed within six weeks following the publication of the case in the Official Journal. An intervener who misses that deadline may still be admitted, but will enjoy limited rights. Specifically, it can make oral submissions at the hearing but will not get access to the file and has no right to make a written submission.
Interim measures
Applications for annulment do not have ‘suspensory’ effect. Thus, if a party files an application for annulment, it must still comply with the obligations resulting from the challenged act. Parties can, however, request the court to issue interim measures, including a suspension of the challenged act.
The standard for interim measures applications is very high, and the success rate very low. The applicant must show a prima facie case, that in absence of interim measures it would suffer irreparable harm, and that the balance of interests speaks in favour of interim measures. In practice, the irreparable harm requirement is an almost insurmountable hurdle, as the courts consider mere financial damage insufficient, because this is reparable through a subsequent damages action. This means that, for all practical purposes, the applicant must show that interim measures are necessary for it not to go bankrupt.
Importantly, an application for interim measures can only be filed in connection with a main action, in particular, an action for annulment. It cannot be filed before the lodging of the action for annulment, but it can be filed at any time thereafter. It can also be re-filed in case of changed circumstances.
Applications for interim measures are normally dealt with by the presidents of the ECJ and the CFI, who decide by way of a reasoned order, either with or without an oral hearing.
Accelerated procedure
A few years ago, the CFI introduced the possibility of an accelerated procedure, specifically with merger control cases in mind. The accelerated procedure has been successfully used for these but also other types of cases. Under the accelerated procedure, there is only one round of written pleadings with very short delays, followed by an extensive oral hearing. The aim is to issue a judgment within six to nine months.
The accelerated procedure must be requested by the applicant or the defendant, together with the filing of the application or the defence. The party requesting the accelerated procedure must show that the case is urgent and is suitable for the accelerated procedure. This requires that the case only raises well defined legal or factual issues that can be dealt with within the context of an accelerated procedure. A party requesting an accelerated procedure can limit its case to specific pleas should accelerated procedure be granted, while maintaining all pleas, in the event the case is decided pursuant to the normal procedure.
PRACTICAL ISSUES
Pursuing a case before the ECJ and the CFI is different in many respects from proceedings before national courts. There are three particularly important issues worthy of highlighting.
Linguistic regime
The most important issue is that the ECJ and CFI are multi-linguistic courts. Regarding the linguistic regime, one has to distinguish between the official language of a case and the courts’ internal working language.
The language of the case can be any of the Community’s official languages. In a reference case, the language of the case is determined by the language of the case before the national court. In a direct action, the language of the case is determined by the language in which the application is lodged. In principle, all documents in the case must be lodged in the language of the case, and the language of the case is also used at the oral hearing. However, member states can make their written and oral submissions in their own language, which will be translated into the language of the case.
Since the judges cannot work in all of the more than 20 different languages, both courts have an internal working language, which by accident and for historical reasons is French. In 1957, the then 6 judges of the ECJ all spoke French, and agreed that this should be their internal working language.
The use of French as the courts’ working language means that all written submissions lodged in another language will be translated into French. The judges and their clerks also normally work on the basis of the French translation rather than the original language version. Lawyers submitting pleadings in another language should bear this in mind when drafting their pleadings and write their pleadings in a simple and clear manner in order to avoid translation errors. Parties also have the chance to submit their arguments themselves in a French translation instead of having the court translate their pleadings. In addition, at many oral hearings the judges will listen to the pleadings by simultaneous translation. Lawyers who speak too quickly or use very complicated language stand to risk that not all of their oral submissions will be properly understood.
Preclusion of new arguments and new evidence
In a direct action, the applicant must set out all pleas in its application and submit all evidence, in particular written evidence, together with the application. It may not introduce new pleas and new evidence later in the proceedings unless the new pleas and new evidence are based upon circumstances of which it could not have been aware at the time it lodged the application. The same rule applies to the defendant, who must also set out its arguments and pleas in its defence.
This preclusion rule often forces the lawyers to make difficult choices. On the one hand, they may want to concentrate their application or defence on the key pleas and arguments. On the other, they certainly do not want to read in the judgment that an argument was rejected because it was submitted too late. The prohibition on adding new documentary evidence later in the proceedings may also lead to the parties submitting an unnecessary amount of documents with the application or defence as a matter of precaution.
Drafting of written briefs
Both the ECJ and the CFI have issued detailed instructions – called practice directions – for the submission of written briefs, which regulate such issues as page margins, fonts to be used, the numbering of annexes, and the drafting of the list of annexes. The CFI’s registry enforces the practice directives particularly vigorously. If pleadings do not comply with the practice directions, the registry will request the party to bring its pleadings in order and not serve the pleadings upon the other parties in the meantime.
One of the most controversial issues regarding the practice directions is the page limit they impose on written pleadings: 50 pages for the application and the defence, and 25 pages for the reply and the rejoinder. Importantly, while the registry tries to enforce these page limits strictly – requesting parties to shorten pleadings if they exceed the page limits – the page limits are not legally binding. It is therefore for each party to decide whether it wishes to insist on longer pleadings, or whether it is prepared to shorten its pleadings. Indeed in many factually complex cases where the reasoning of the challenged act may be several hundred pages, and the file several thousand pages, it is virtually impossible to set out the case in a meaningful manner within 50 pages.
CHALLENGES AHEAD
The ECJ and the CFI have played a pre-eminent role in the development of Community law, and therefore the Community at large. However, both courts face significant challenges for the coming years which they need to address in order to ensure their continued success.
The most important challenge is the duration of the proceedings, which have reached unacceptable levels. For example, the CFI issued 21 judgments in the four months between 1 November 2006 and 28 February 2007 in matters other than trademark and staff cases. Of these 21 cases, one started in 2001, 11 in 2002, five in 2003, and four in 2004. None of the cases started in 2005 or 2006. This confirms that the current length of state aid, competition or trade cases is three to five years. This can amount to a denial of effective judicial protection.
The creation of the CST will certainly free some of the CFI’s resources, but this will not be enough. The most important factor causing delays is the language regime. While it is important to maintain the opportunity for parties to lodge cases in any of the Community’s languages, the courts may wish to think about reforming their internal working language. In particular, many of the very complex and large cases, notably in the areas of state aid, competition, and trade, are lodged in English which probably is also the most widely spoken language among the courts’ judges. Allowing English as a second internal working language would significantly reduce the need for translation and could therefore significantly speed up these proceedings.
The second most important challenge for the courts is to maintain the quality of their judgments. Community law has reached an enormously high degree of complexity. While practising lawyers tend to be highly specialised, the judges of the ECJ and the CFI have to deal on a daily basis with all aspects of Community law. So far, both courts have rejected the idea of specialised chambers on the ground that this could jeopardise the uniformity of Community law. It is doubtful whether and at what price this policy can be continued. Indeed, the question of specialised competition chambers at the CFI, or even a specialised competition court, is very much on the agenda. Specialisation within the CFI, in particular, could also lead to faster judgments.
Finally, the courts must continue to fill their role as a representative of the Community. The issues confronting the Community courts today directly affect the lives of many EU citizens. It is important that citizens feel that the Community courts take their concerns seriously. This is not only a matter of substance but also very much a matter of perception, concerning the way in which the procedures before the two courts are conducted and judgments are drafted. If citizens feel, rightly or wrongly, that their arguments are not properly heard and addressed by the courts, they will not only reject the courts but also the Community as a whole.
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Mr Azizi was appointed as a judge at the Court of First Instance (CFI) on 18 January 1995, following Austria’s admission to the European Union. He obtained an undergraduate degree in sociology and economics, and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Vienna. He became a lecturer and later senior lecturer at the Vienna School of Economics and the Faculty of Law of the University of Vienna. He was also formerly head of department at the Austrian Federal Chancellery and a member of the steering committee on legal cooperation of the Council of Europe. He has served as representative ad litem before the Verfassungsgerichtshof (Constitutional Court) in proceedings for review of the constitutionality of federal laws. Mr Azizi was also the coordinator responsible for the adaptation of Austrian Federal law to Community law.
Mr Cooke has been a judge of the CFI since 1996. He is a graduate of University College, Dublin, and was admitted to the Irish Bar in 1966 and subsequently to the Bars of England & Wales, of Northern Ireland and of New South Wales. He practised law from 1966 to 1996, and from 1985 to 1986 he was elected president of the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the European Community (CCBE). In addition, he was visiting fellow at University College Dublin’s faculty of law and fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. From 1987 to 1990 he served as president of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland. A bencher of the Honorable Society of Kings Inns, Dublin and honorary bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, London, Mr Cooke became a judge at the CFI on 10 January 1996.
Ms Cremona became a judge of the CFI on 12 May 2004. She qualified from the Royal University of Malta with a BA in languages in 1955 and a Doctor of Laws (LLD) in 1958. She was admitted to the Maltese bar in 1959 and until her appointment to the CFI she played a key role in the fields of human rights and gender in Malta. From 1964 to 1979 she served as a legal advisor to the National Council of Women of Malta. In this capacity she also drafted memoranda to the government on discrimination against women in Maltese law. This led to amendments to the Maltese civil code in 1973. In 1979 she resigned her position in order to take up general human rights activities. During the period from 1983 to 1987 she was a member of a Maltese human rights group, which interacted with international human rights groups (such as the Helsinki Federation for Human Rights and Amnesty International), monitored human rights violations in Malta and compiled data for the group’s annual human rights report. From 1987 to 1989 she worked as a member of the public service commission, a constitutional commission which adjudicates appointments and promotions within the public service as well as appeals from the public service disciplinary board. Her work experience includes serving as a board member at Lombard Bank (Malta) Ltd, representing the government shareholding from 1987 to 1993, a member of the electoral commission since 1993, an examiner for doctoral theses at the Royal University of Malta and member of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) from 2003 to 2004.
A former judge at the Hungarian constitutional court Mr Czúcz joined the CFI on 12 May 2004. Having graduated from the University of Szeged with a Doctor of Laws in 1971, Mr Czúcz started his career as an administrator at the Ministry of Labour. In 1974 he returned to Szeged to teach at the University of Szeged, as a lecturer from 1974 to 1989, dean of the Faculty of Law from 1989 to 1990 and a vice-rector from 1992 to 1997. He spent a year in Munich between 1984 and 1985 working as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. As a fellow of the Confederation of Switzerland, he gave lectures and carried out research work at the University of Geneva in 1991 and 1992. As a member of the presidium of the national retirement insurance scheme he became a judge at the Hungarian constitutional court, where he served from 1998 to 2004. From 1998 to 2002 he was also vice-president of the European Institute for Social Security and a member of the scientific council of the International Social Security Association from 1998 to 2004. Mr Czúcz is fluent in English, French, and German.
Mr Dehousse obtained his law degree from the University of Liege in 1981 and a Doctor of Laws from the University of Strasbourg in 1990. He was a research fellow at Fonds National de la Recherche Scientifique from 1985 to 1989 and a legal advisor to the House of Representatives from 1981 to 1990. He has an academic background, as a professor at the Universities of Liege and Strasbourg, the College of Europe, the Institut Royal Supérieur de Défense, the Université de Montesquieu, Bordeaux, the Collège Michel Servet of the University of Paris and Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur. From 1995 to 1999 he was appointed as a special representative of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. From 1998 to 2003 he served as a director of European studies of the Royal Institute of International Relations, and from 2001 to 2003 he served as assesseur at the Council of State. His previous experience includes working as a consultant to the European Commission (1990-2003) and acting as a member of the Internet Observatory (2001-2003). Mr Dehousse has been a judge at the CFI since 7 October 2003.
Graduating from Cambridge University in 1969 with a BA and in 1973 with an MA in mechanical sciences and law, Mr Forwood was called to the English Bar in 1970. Afterwards he practised in London from 1971 to 1979 and in Brussels from 1979 to 1999. In 1981 he was called to the Irish Bar and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1987. Becoming a bencher of the Middle Temple in 1998, he served as representative of the Bar of England and Wales at the Council of the Bars and Law Societies of the EU (CCBE) and Chairman of the CCBE’s Permanent Delegation to the ECJ from 1995 to 1999. From 1993 to 2002 he was a member of the governing board member of the World Trade Law Association and the European Maritime Law Organisation. Mr Forwood was appointed as a member of the CFI in December 1999.
A judge at the CFI since 5 September 1989, Mr García-Valdecasas y Fernández was head of the Spanish delegation in the working group created at the Council of the European Communities with a view to establishing the Court of First Instance of the European Communities. He started his career as an Abogado del Estado (at Jaén and Granada). He was registrar to the Economic and Administrative Court of Jaén, and subsequently of Cordoba. Before joining the CFI in 1989 he was head of the Spanish State Legal Service for cases before the ECJ.
Mr Jaeger has been a judge at the CFI since 11 July 1996. An attaché de justice, delegated to the public attorney’s office, he was appointed as judge and vice-president of the Luxembourg District Court. While teaching at the Centre Universitaire de Luxembourg (Luxembourg University Centre), he was seconded to be a legal secretary at the ECJ from 1986.
Ms Jürimäe received her degree in law from the University of Tartu in 1986. From 1986 to 1991 she was an assistant to the public prosecutor in Tallinn. She worked as a legal advisor from 1991 to 1993 and general counsel from 1992 to 1993 at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and during that time she obtained a diploma from the Estonian School of Diplomacy. She entered the judiciary and became a judge at the Tallinn Court of Appeal, where she served for 11 years. In 2003 she obtained a European masters in human rights and democratisation from the Universities of Padua and Nottingham and became a judge at the CFI on 12 May 2004.
Ms Ingrida Labucka, a former Minister of Justice, has been a judge at the CFI since 12 May 2004. Ms Labucka obtained her diploma in law from the University of Latvia in 1986, after which she was recruited as investigator at the Interior Ministry for the Kirov Region and the City of Riga. In 1990 she became a judge at the Riga District Court and remained in that post until 1994, when she left the judiciary and entered private practice. She worked as a lawyer from 1994 until 1998, when she was elected as the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Latvia. In July 1999 she returned to private practice until May 2000, when she was re-elected as Minister for Justice, a post that she held until October 2002. She has worked for the International Court of Arbitration in the Hague – where she was a member from 2001 to 2004 – and as a member of Parliament from 2002 to 2004.
Legal, Hubert (France)
A state counsellor in France, Mr Legal graduated from the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud and from the École Nationale d’Administration. From 1979 to 1985 he was an associate professor of English. From 1988 to 1993 he served as a rapporteur and subsequently Commissaire du Gouvernement in proceedings before the judicial sections of the Conseil d’État. In 1993 he was entrusted with the prestigious post of legal advisor in the permanent representation of the French Republic to the United Nations in New York. In 1997 he turned his eye towards Europe and became legal secretary in the Chambers of Judge Puissochet at the ECJ. After four years in that post he became a judge at the CFI in 2001.
As a consequence of the accession of Romania to the European Union on 1 January 2007, the representatives of the governments of the member states of the European Union appointed Mr Teodor Tchipev as judge at the CFI for the period from 12 January 2007 to 31 August 2010. Mr M. Ciuc? obtained his degree in law in 1984 and a doctorate in law in 1997 from the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Ia?i. He served as a judge at the Court of First Instance, Suceava from 1984 to 1989 and as a judge at the Military Court, Ia?i from 1989 to 1990. In 1990 he was entrusted with the position of professor at Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Ia?i, where he remained for 16 years. At the same time he was a stipended student specialising in private law at the University of Rennes (1991-1992), an assistant professor at Petre Andrei University, Ia?i (1999-2002) and a lecturer at the Université du Littoral Côte d’Opale, Dunkirk (Research Unit on Industry and Innovation) in 2006.
Ms Martins de Nazaré Ribeiro studied in Lisbon, Brussels and Strasbourg. A member of the Bar in Portugal and Brussels, she was an independent researcher at the Institute of European Studies, the Free University of Brussels. In 1986 she became legal secretary to the Portuguese judge at the Court of Justice, Mr Moitinho de Almeida and in 2000 legal secretary to the President of the CFI, Mr Bo Vesterdorf. She became a judge at the CFI in 2004.
Mr Papasavvas completed his studies at the University of Athens in 1991. He obtained his DEA in public law from the University of Paris II in 1992 and a PhD in law from the University of Aix-Marseille III in 1995. After being admitted to the Cyprus Bar in 1993 he started his career in private practice. From 1997 to 2002 he was a lecturer at the University of Cyprus and since September 2002 a lecturer in constitutional law. From 2001 to 2002 he worked as a researcher at the European public law centre and became judge at the CFI on 12 May 2004.
Following EU accession, Ms Pelikánová became the Czech Republic’s first member judge to represent the country in Luxembourg. Before joining the European Institutions, from 1998 to 2004 Ms Pelikánová was a member of the legislative council of the government of the Czech Republic. She obtained her Doctor of Laws, and subsequently worked as an assistant in economic law and later (from 1993) a Professor of Business Law at Charles University in Prague. From 1999 to 2002 she was a member of the executive of the securities commission and worked for two years in private practice before her appointment to the legislative council.
Mr Pirrung has been a judge at the CFI since 11 June 1997. An academic assistant at the University of Marburg, he obtained his Doctor of Laws from the University of Marburg, and began working as an advisor, and subsequently became head of the section for private international law and, finally, head of a subdivision for civil law in the German Federal Ministry of Justice. From 1993 to 1998 he was a member of the Governing Council of Unidroit and in 1996 he became chairman of the Commission of the Hague Conference on Private International Law to draw up the convention concerning the protection of children. An honorary professor of private international law, international procedural law and European law at the University of Trier, he has been a member of the scientific advisory board of the Max Planck Institute for Foreign Private and Private International Law in Hamburg since 2002.
Mr Prek received his degree in law in 1989 and was called to the Bar in 1994. Before joining the European Institutions he performed various tasks and functions in public administration, principally in the government Office for Legislation (under-secretary of state and deputy director, head of the department for European and comparative law) and in the Office for European Affairs (under-secretary of state). He was also a member of the negotiating team for the association agreement from 1994 to 1996 and for accession to the European Union for 1998 to 2003, responsible for legal affairs. Mr Prek was responsible for projects regarding adaptation to European legislation and European integration, principally in the Western Balkans. In 2004 he decided to embark on a career in the European Institutions. He became head of division at the ECJ and, after two years, the Slovenian judge at the CFI.
A member of the European Commission of Human Rights and a judge at the Slovakian constitutional court (from 2000 to 2004), Daniel Šváby was a distinguished judge in Slovakia before moving to the Court of First Instance on 12 May 2004. He obtained a Doctor of Laws from the University of Bratislava and held various offices within the judiciary, including: judge at the district court, Bratislava; appeal court judge responsible for civil law cases; vice-president of the appeal court, Bratislava; and judge responsible for commercial law cases at the Supreme Court. He was also a member of the civil and family law section at the Ministry of Justice’s Law Institute.
A former judge at the Constitutional Court and former Minister for Justice Mr Tchipev was appointed as judge at the CFI on 12 January 2007 after the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007. He obtained a degree in law at St Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia in 1961 and a Doctorate in law in 1977. His study and research activities include the European University centre, Nancy, France, the summer school in American law, Leyden, Netherlands, the academy of international law, The Hague and the Max Planck Institute of Foreign Private Law and international private law, Hamburg. He started off his career in 1963 as a lawyer and became legal advisor at the state automobile enterprise for international transport from 1964 to 1973. It was from there that he moved to the institute of law, Bulgarian academy of sciences to work as a research fellow from 1973 until 1988. In 1988 he was appointed as an associate professor of civil procedure at the faculty of law of St Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia and remained at that post until 1991. From 1988 to 2006 he served as an arbitrator at the Court of Arbitration of the Chamber of Trade and Industry. In 1991 he entered the judiciary and was entrusted with the prestigious position as a judge at the Constitutional Court. Three years later he became Minister for Justice (1994-1995). From 1995 to 2006 he worked as an associate professor of civil procedure at the New Bulgarian University, Sofia and from 2001 to 2006 as an associate professor at Paissi Hilendarski University, Plovdiv. Mr Tchipev has published many articles on questions of civil procedure, international commercial arbitration and constitutional justice and has drafted many reports on these questions for various conferences in Bulgaria and abroad. He speaks French, German, Russian and English.
Upon the accession of Finland to the European Union on 1 January 1995 Ms Tiili became judge at the CFI. She holds a Doctor of Laws from the University of Helsinki, where she worked as an assistant lecturer in civil and commercial law. Before joining the CFI she was director of legal affairs and commercial policy at the Central Chamber of Commerce of Finland and director general of the Finnish office for consumer protection.
A member of the coordinating group of the delegation negotiating Lithuanian accession to the European Union from 2002 to 2004, Mr Vadapalas was appointed the first representative judge of Lithuania to the CFI in May 2004. He obtained a doctorate from the Lomonosov Moscow State University and a Doctor habil. in law from the University of Warsaw. From 1981 to 2004, Mr Vadapalas taught international law at the University of Vilnius, focusing on human rights law since 1991 and European Union law since 2000. From 1991 to 1993 he was an adviser to the Lithuanian government on foreign relations. He was the director general of the European Law department of the Government of Lithuania from 1997 to 2004 and Jean Monnet Professor of European Union Law at the faculty of law of Vilnius University. An author of many books and several articles on international Law, human rights, international humanitarian and European law, Mr Vadapalas was a member of several international negotiation teams of the Lithuanian government including dealings on land frontiers and maritime delimitation and membership of Lithuania in the European Union. He is also president of the Lithuanian European Community Studies Association and was a member and chairman of the parliamentary working group for the drafting of constitutional amendments necessary for the accession of Lithuania to the European Union. He actively took part in the process of harmonising Lithuanian law with international and European human rights standards and EU law. In addition, he was an expert of the Council of Europe on compatibility of national legislation with the European Convention on Human Rights.
Bo Vesterdorf is president and the longest-serving member of the CFI. He was one of the 12 original members of the court when it was set up on 25 September 1989 and managed the court’s growth to 27 judges representing the countries of the expanded EU. The president of the CFI since 4 March 1998, Mr Vesterdorf was re-elected in September 1998, in September 2001 and again on 8 September 2004. He has played a huge role in making the CFI into a key centre for dispensing EU justice, having presided over many important competition and intellectual property cases, notably Microsoft in its appeal of EC antitrust penalties (Microsoft’s appeal of the European Union’s antitrust decision). Mr Vesterdorf began his career as a lawyer-linguist at the ECJ. Later on he served as an administrator in the Danish Ministry of Justice, as an examining magistrate and as a legal attaché in the permanent representation of Denmark to the European Communities. He was a temporary judge at the Østre Landsret (Court of Appeal) and head of the constitutional and administrative law division of the Danish Ministry of Justice. Mr Vesterdorf was a member of the steering committee on human rights at the Council of Europe (CDDH) and subsequently became a member of the bureau of the CDDH. In 2004 he also became member of the ad hoc committee on judicial training at the Academy of European Law, Trier (Germany), and an occasional lecturer at the University of Copenhagen. He has published widely on European law, particularly competition law.
After working in private practice from 1974 to 1980, Mr Vilaras became a national expert with the Legal Service of the Commission of the European Communities, then principal administrator in DG V (employment, industrial relations, social affairs) at the Commission in Brussels. He was a junior officer, junior member and, since 1999, member of the Greek Council of State and an associate member of the Superior Special Court of Greece. From 1996 to 1998 he was a member of the central legislative drafting committee of Greece and later director of the legal service in the Greek government’s general secretariat. He has been a judge at the CFI since 17 September 1998.
Before joining the CFI on 17 September 1998, Mr Meij held various positions within the judiciary and was a reputed judge and academic. He has served as justice at the Supreme Court of the Netherlands (1996), as judge and vice-president at the College van Beroep voor het Bedrijfsleven (Administrative Court for Trade and Industry) (1986), judge substitute at the Court of Appeal for social security, and substitute member of the administrative Court for customs tariff matters. In 1980
he was appointed as a legal secretary at the ECJ. He has also worked as a lecturer
in European law at the University of Groningen, research assistant at the University of Michigan Law School and a staff member of the International Secretariat of the Amsterdam Chamber of Commerce (1970).
Ms Wiszniewska-Bialecka obtained her Magister Juris from the University of Warsaw in 1969. From 1969 to 2004 she was a researcher, assistant lecturer, associate professor, and then professor at the Institute of Legal Sciences of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Between 1985 and 1986 she worked as an assistant researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Patent, Copyright and Competition Law, Munich. Working as a lawyer from 1992 to 2000, she became a judge at the Supreme Administrative Court in 2001. Three years later she was appointed a judge at the CFI.
Mr Moavero Milanesi obtained his degree in law from the La Sapienza University of Rome in 1977. He also earned a certificate in Community law from the College of Europe in Bruges in 1982, and a certificate from the Academy of American and International Law (University of Texas at Dallas) in 1983. Between 1977 and 1979 he was lieutenant of the Guardia di Finanza, the Italian fiscal police. Afterwards he became an attorney with an international firm in Rome, but from 1983 onwards, he held several positions mainly at the European Commission. From 1983 to 1988 he was a case handler on the application of EC antitrust rules at DG Competition. Between 1990 and 1992, he was head of cabinet of the Commission Vice President, responsible for telecommunications, information technology, science, research and technological development. From 1993 to 1995 he served as an advisor on Community matters to the Italian Prime Minister. In subsequent years he held various offices in the Commission, including: head of cabinet for Commissioner Mario Monti (1995-1999); head of cabinet of the Commissioner responsible for Competition (1999); director, directorate-general for Competition within the directorate responsible for services (1999-2002); and director in the antitrust service (2000-2001). In 2002 he became deputy secretary-general of the Commission. Until the end of 2006 he was director general of the bureau for European policy advisers of the European Commission and since May 2006 he has been judge at the CFI. In addition he was lecturer in Community law at the Universities of La Sapienza (Rome) from 1993 to 1996, Luiss (Rome) from 1993 to 1996 and from 2002 to 2006 and Bocconi (Milan) from 1996 to 2000. He has also written several articles and books on merger control regulation, EU law and policies, and EU competition law.
Nils Wahl has been a judge at the CFI since 7 October 2006. He graduated from the University of Stockholm with a Master of Laws in 1987 and a Doctor of Laws in 1995. On completion of his studies he became an associate professor (docent) and holder of the Jean Monet Chair of European Law in 1995 and a professor of European law, University of Stockholm in 2001. Assistant lawyer in private practice from 1987 to 1989, he worked as a managing director for an educational foundation from 1993 to 2004. From 2001 to 2006 he was chairman of the Swedish network for European legal research (Nätverket för europarättslig forskning) and from 2001 to 2006 member of the council for competition law matters (Rådet för konkurrensfrågor). In 2005 he was assigned judge to the Court of Appeal for Skåne and Blekinge (Hovrätten över Skåne och Blekinge).
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Mr Arabadjiev is a former judge of the Supreme Court of Bulgaria (civil law division) and a former member of the Bulgarian Parliament. He completed his legal studies at the St Kliment Ohridski University, Sofia. Before joining the ECJ on 12 January 2007 as the Bulgarian judge, he was an eminent judge at home, starting off in the District Court, Blagoevgrad in 1975, then moving to the Regional Court, Blagoevgrad in 1983, to the Supreme Court in 1986 and subsequently to the Constitutional Court from 1991 to 2000. A member of the former European Commission of Human Rights from 1997 to 1999, of the European Convention on the Future of Europe from 2002 to 2003, and of the National Assembly from 2001 to 2006 he also worked as an observer at the European Parliament. Mr Arabadjiev was appointed a judge at the ECJ after the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union in 2007.
Mr Arestis graduated in law from the University of Athens in 1968 and obtained an MA in comparative politics and government from the University of Kent at Canterbury in 1970. On completion of his studies he embarked on a career in private practice. He worked as a lawyer in Cyprus from 1972 to 1982, and was then appointed District Court judge and promoted to the post of president of the District Court in 1995. From 1997 to 2003 he was administrative president of the District Court of Nicosia. In 2003 he was appointed judge at the Supreme Court of Cyprus, before moving to his present position as a judge at the ECJ on 11 May 2004.
Mr Bay Larsen obtained a degree in political science in 1976 and law in 1983 from the University of Copenhagen. From 1983 to 1985 he served as an official at the Ministry of Justice. He worked as an academic at the University of Copenhagen, first as a lecturer in family law, from 1984 to 1991 and then as an associate professor from 1991 to 1996. In 1985 he was recruited as head of section at the Advokatsamfund (the Danish Bar Association), before being offered the position of the head of section at the Ministry of Justice the following year. From 1991 to 2003 he held various positions at the Ministry of Justice, including: head of division (1991-1995); head of the police department (1995-1999); and head of the law department (2000-2003). Mr Bay Larsen was the Danish representative on the K-4 Committee from 1995 to 2000, the Schengen Central Group from 1996 to 1998 and the Europol Management Board from 1998 to 2000. In 2003 he became a judge at the Højesteret (Supreme Court) and was appointed as judge at the ECJ on 11 January 2006.
Mr Bonichot was elected a judge at the ECJ on 7 October 2006. He is a graduate of the University of Metz and holds a degree from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris and is a former student at the École Nationale d’Administration. From 1982 to 1985 he worked as a rapporteur, after which he was appointed as Commissaire du Gouvernement. He remained in that post until 1987 and returned to it in 1992 for a seven-year period. In between he was recruited as legal secretary at the ECJ until 1991 and as a director of the private office of the Minister for Labour, Employment and Vocational Training, and subsequently for the Minister for the Civil Service and Modernisation of Administration from 1991 to 1992. In 1999 he became a judge and the following year president of the sixth sub-division of the Judicial Division at the Council of State, where he remained until his appointment as a judge at the ECJ. In addition, from 2001 to 2006 he was entrusted with the position of the head of the Legal Mission of the Council of State at the National Health Insurance Fund for employed persons. On the academic side, from 1988 to 2000 he worked as a lecturer at the University of Metz, then at the University of Paris I, Panthéon-Sorbonne from 2000. He is the author of numerous publications on administrative law, Community law and European human rights law, founder and chairman of the editorial committee of the Bulletin de Jurisprudence de Droit de l’Urbanisme and co-founder and member of the editorial committee of the Bulletin Juridique des Collectivités Locales. He is also president of the scientific council of the research group on institutions and laws governing regional and urban planning and habitats.
With a Doctorate in Law from the Royal University of Malta in 1973, Mr Borg Barthet was admitted to the bar in Malta in 1974. After working in private practice for a year he joined the Maltese civil service as a notary to the government in 1975. He was transferred to the attorney-general’s office in 1978, where he worked as a counsel for the Republic in 1978. From 1979 to 1988 he was posted as senior counsel for the Republic, becoming assistant attorney-general and was promoted to attorney-general in 1989. During his career Mr Borg Barthet appeared for the government of Malta in civil and constitutional cases. He prosecuted before the higher criminal courts in Malta, was an agent for the government before the European Court of Human Rights and represented the government of Malta in various Council of Europe committees, at Commonwealth Law Ministries Conferences, European Minister of Justice Conferences and at other meetings and in bilateral negotiations, and co-chaired joint OECD-Co-operative Jurisdiction meetings on unfair tax practices. From 1985 to 1989 he worked as a part-time lecturer in civil law at the University of Malta and became member of the council of the University of Malta from 1998 to 2004. He was member of the commission for the administration of justice from 1994 to 2004 and member of the board of governors of the Malta arbitration centre from 1998 to 2004. He became the Maltese judge at the ECJ on 11 May 2004.
A former Paris public prosecutor, Mr Bot is one of the advocates-general at the ECJ. Having graduated from Rouen University’s law faculty, he earned his Doctor of Laws from the University of Paris II, Panthéon-Assas. After working as a lecturer at the Le Mans University’s law faculty, he was appointed as deputy public prosecutor, then senior deputy public prosecutor in Le Mans from 1974 to 1982. He then worked for two years as a public prosecutor at the Regional Court in Dieppe, a further two years as a deputy public prosecutor at the Regional Court in Strasbourg and, from 1986 to 1988, as a public prosecutor at the Regional Court in Bastia. In 1988 he became advocate-general at the Court of Appeal in Caen. In 1991 he was appointed as a public prosecutor at the Regional Court in Le Mans and then switched to become a special adviser to the Minister for Justice from 1993 to 1995. From 1995 to 2002 he worked as a public prosecutor at the Nanterre Regional Court and from 2002 to 2004 as a public prosecutor at the Regional Court in Paris. In 2004 he was recruited to the Court of Appeal, Paris as principal state prosecutor, from where he was appointed to the ECJ on 7 October 2006.
A member of the French judiciary, Mr Grass has been a registrar at the ECJ since 10 February 1994. He had his term renewed on 28 June 2005 for the period from 2006 to February 2012. The registrar of the court is elected by the judges and advocates-general for a term of six years. He is the secretary-general of the institution, whose departments he directs under the authority of the president of the court. Mr Grass graduated from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques, Paris and was awarded a higher degree in public law. He has served as deputy Procureur de la République attached to the Tribunal de Grande Instance, Versailles, principal administrator at the ECJ, secretary-general of the Court of Appeal, Paris, member of the cabinet of the French Minister for Justice, and legal secretary at the ECJ in the chambers of Presidents Kutscher, Mertens de Wilmars, Lord Mackenzie Stuart and Due.
Mr Ilešic graduated from the University of Ljubljana with a Doctor of Law, before specialising in comparative law at the Universities of Strasbourg and Coimbra. He was appointed as a judge at the labour court, Ljubljana, from 1975 to 1986, while from 1978 to 1986 he was president of the sports tribunal. Mr Ilešic was an arbitrator at the following institutions: the arbitration court of the Triglav insurance company from 1990 to 1998; the stock exchange arbitration court from 1998; the chamber of commerce of Yugoslavia until 1991, and Slovenia from 1991 and the international chamber of commerce in Paris. He was also chairman of the stock exchange appellate chamber from 1995, judge at the board of appeals of UEFA from 1988 and FIFA from 2000, president of the union of Slovenian lawyers’ associations, member of the international law association, of the international maritime committee and of several other international legal societies. Mr Ilešic is professor of civil law, commercial law and private international law, and dean of the faculty of law at the University of Ljubljana. In 11 May 2004 he was elected to represent Slovenia at the ECJ. He is author of numerous legal publications.
Mr Peter obtained his Doctor of Laws from the University of Vienna in 1957. In 1961 he was appointed a judge and assigned to the Federal Ministry of Justice. Two years later he was entrusted with the position of judge responsible for press matters at the Straf-Bezirksgericht, Vienna. From 1966 to 1970 he was recruited as the spokesman of the Federal Ministry of Justice and was subsequently appointed to the international affairs department of that ministry. Working as an adviser to the Justice Committee and spokesman at the Parliament from 1973 to 1978, he was appointed as member of the Constitutional Court in 1978 and remained there as a permanent judge-rapporteur until the end of 1994. Equipped with the required legal knowledge and expertise he joined the ECJ on 19 January 1995. On 7 October 2006 he was elected president of the first chamber at the ECJ.
Mr Juhász graduated in law from the József Attila University of Arts and Sciences in Szeged, Hungary in 1967. He passed the Hungarian Bar entrance examinations in 1970 and completed his post-graduate studies in comparative law at the University of Strasbourg, France in 1972. In 1966 he joined the Ministry of Foreign Trade, first as an official in the legal department and in 1973 as a director for legislative matters. From 1974 to 1979 he was first commercial secretary at the Hungarian Embassy, Brussels, responsible for European Community issues. From the end of 1979 he was head of the department in charge of relations with advanced capitalist countries at the Ministry of Foreign Trade, while between 1983 and 1989 he was head of the trade subsection of the Hungarian embassy in Washington. From 1989 to 1991 he worked as director general of the Ministry of Trade and Ministry of International Economic Relations, and the following year was made chief negotiator for the association agreement between Hungary and the European Communities and their member states. He later became secretary general of the Ministry of International Economic Relations, Head of the Office of European Affairs (1992), state secretary at the Ministry of International Economic Relations from 1993 to 1994, and state secretary and president of the office of European affairs at the Ministry of Industry and Trade in 1994. In 1995 he was appointed ambassador of the Republic of Hungary to the European Union. As ambassador he was chief negotiator for the Hungarians from the beginning of the EU accession negotiations in 1998 until the final agreement in 2002. In May 2003 he became minister without portfolio in charge of the co-ordination of matters relating to European integration and a year later was appointed as the Hungarian judge at the ECJ.
A former judge at the Constitutional Court of the Slovak Republic Mr Klucka was nominated as judge at the ECJ in May 2004. He obtained his Doctor of Law from the University of Bratislava in 1974, and has been professor of international law at Kosice University since 1975. In 1993 he was appointed judge at the Constitutional Court, and the following year became a member of the permanent court of arbitration at The Hague and at the Venice commission. In 2002 he became chairman of the Slovakian association of international law.
Ms Kokott completed her legal studies at the Universities of Bonn in 1982 and Geneva in 1979. A Fulbright scholar in the US she obtained her LLM from the American University, Washington DC in 1983. She holds a Doctor of Laws from Heidelberg University, (1985) and from Harvard University (1990). She embarked on an academic career in 1991 as visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. Subsequently, she became a professor of German and foreign public law, international law and European law at the Universities of Augsburg in 1992, Heidelberg in 1993 and Düsseldorf in 1994. In March 1995 she was appointed as deputy judge for the Federal Government at the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe. In 1996 she was appointed as a member of the Federal Government’s Advisory Council on Global Change in which she was later promoted to deputy chair. In 1999 Ms Kokott became professor of international law, international business law and European law at the University of St Gallen, and in the following two years became director of the Institute for European and international business law at the University of St Gallen, and deputy director of the master of business law programme at the University of St Gallen. Ms Kokott became an advocate-general at the ECJ on 7 October 2003.
Mr Kuris was the first representative of Lithuania in the European Court of Human Rights and has been at the ECJ since 11 May 2004. He graduated in law from the University of Vilnius in 1961, obtained a doctorate in legal science from the University of Moscow in 1965 and another doctorate in legal science from the University of Moscow in 1973. From 1967 to 1968 he was research assistant at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales at the University of Paris. He became a member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1996 and in 2001 became an honorary doctor of law at the University of Lithuania. Mr Kuris remained at the University of Vilnius for almost 30 years (1961-1990) and had a wide range of important posts and various teaching and administrative duties as a lecturer, assistant professor, professor of public international law and dean of the faculty of law. In addition he held several prestigious governmental posts in the Lithuanian diplomatic service and Ministry of Justice. He was Minister for Justice from 1990 to 1991, member of the state council in 1991, and ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania to Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands from 1992 to 1994. In June 1994 Mr Kuris was appointed a judge at the (former) European Court of Human Rights. He remained in that post until November 1998. From December 1994 to October 1998 he was judge and subsequently president at the Supreme Court of Lithuania. In November 1998 he became judge at the then newly instituted European Court of Human Rights. Mr Kuris has participated in several international conferences and is the author of almost 200 legal publications. Mr Kuris was a member of the delegation of the Republic of Lithuania to negotiations with the USSR from 1990 to 1992.
Mr Lenaerts has been a professor of European law at the University of Leuven since 1983 and a judge at the ECJ since 7 October 2003. On 7 October 2006 he was elected president of the fourth chamber. Mr Lenaerts entered the European Institutions on 25 September 1989, when he was appointed as judge at the Court of First Instance. Mr Lenaerts holds a PhD in law from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (1982) and Master of Laws (1978) and a Masters in Public Administration (1979) from Harvard University. In 1979 he became lecturer at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and subsequently a professor of European Law in 1983. From 1984 to 1985 he was appointed as legal secretary at the ECJ. From 1984 to 1989 he worked as a professor at the College of Europe, Bruges. Mr Lenaerts was a member of the Brussels Bar between 1986 and 1989 and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in 1989. He is a member of the Academia Europaea, and speaks fluent Dutch, French, English, German and Spanish.
A former deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Justice and judge of the European Court of Human Rights, Mr Levits was a well-known personality when he was appointed judge at the ECJ on 11 May 2004. He graduated in law and political science from the University of Hamburg, on completion of his studies he worked as a research assistant at the faculty of law at the University of Kiel and as an advisor to the Latvian Parliament on questions of international law, constitutional law and legislative reform. From 1992 to 1993 he served as Latvian ambassador to Germany and Switzerland and from 1994 to 1995 as the ambassador to Austria, Switzerland and Hungary. From 1993 to 1994 he was deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Justice and acting Minister for Foreign Affairs. Since 1997 he has been conciliator at the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and he has been a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration since
2001. He was elected as a judge to the European Court of Human Rights in 1995 and re-elected in 1998 and 2001. Mr Levits is the author of numerous publications in the sphere of constitutional and administrative law, law reform and European Community law.
One of the two female judges and three female advocates-general of the 34 members of the ECJ, Ms Lindh graduated from the University of Lund in 1971. On completion of her studies she was appointed a junior judge at the Trollhättan District Court and then moved in 1974 to the Svea Court of Appeal to work as an assistant judge for another year. In 1975 she was appointed judge at the Stockholm District Court (covering criminal and civil cases). From 1975 to 1978 she worked at the Svea Court of Appeal as a legal assistant to the President of the Court (covering legal and administrative matters). From 1979 to 1980 she joined the office of the Chancellor of Justice, handling private claims for compensation arising from the alleged incorrect exercise of public authority by state authorities – producing reports on the same – and from 1980 to 1981 she was an associate judge at the Svea Court of Appeal. In 1981 she became legal advisor at the Ministry of Commerce and from 1982 to 1995 she was legal adviser and director general at the legal service of the trade department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She was appointed a judge at the Court of First Instance on 18 January 1995 and joined the ECJ on 7 October 2006.
A former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Mr Lõhmus has been a judge at the ECJ since May 2004 and visiting professor of the University of Tartu since 2000. He obtained his Doctor of Laws from the University of Leningrad in 1986. After beginning his career in private practice, Mr Lõhmus became a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in 1994. After four years in that post he returned to Estonia and became chief justice of the Supreme Court of Estonia for a six-year period from November 1998 to April 2004. Whilst working in Estonia he held numerous judicial positions including being a member of the committee for legal expertise in the constitution, a consultant to the working group drafting the criminal code and a member of the working group for the drafting of the Criminal Procedure Code. Mr Lõhmus was appointed judge at the ECJ on 11 May 2004. He is the author of several works on human rights and constitutional law and speaks Estonian, English and Russian.
Mr Jerzy Makarczyk, a former deputy Foreign Minister of Poland and former judge at the European Court of Human Rights, has been a judge at the ECJ since 11 May 2004. He has given lectures, seminars and acted as a consultant to universities in Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. He is the author of several works on public international law, European Community law and human rights law and a member of several societies in the fields of international law, European law and human rights law. He obtained his Doctor of Laws in 1966. In 1974 he became professor of public international law, in 1985 senior visiting fellow at the University of Oxford and in 1988 professor at the International Christian University, Tokyo. Within his own country he was entrusted with senior cabinet positions, serving as under-secretary of state, then secretary of state for foreign affairs from 1989 to 1992 and chairman of the Polish delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations. He led the negotiations with the former Soviet Union on the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Polish territory. He also headed the team which argued for Poland to be admitted to the Council on Europe. In 1992 he was made judge at the European Court of Human Rights, where he had worked for ten years. In 2003 he became president of the Institut de Droit International. From 2002 to 2004 he held the position of the advisor to the President of the Republic of Poland on foreign policy and human rights.
A former judge at the Czech Constitutional Court Mr Malenovský became a judge at the ECJ in 2005. He obtained his Doctor of Law from Charles University in Prague in 1975, became vice dean at Masaryk University in Brno in 1989, head of the department of international and European law in 1992 and professor of public international law in 2002. In 1992 he was appointed as judge at the Constitutional Court of Czechoslovakia and from 1993 to 1998 he worked as a permanent representative of the Czech Republic in the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In 1995 he was assigned as president of the committee of ministers’ deputies of the Council of Europe. From 1998 to 2000 he held the post of senior director at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and from 1999 to 2001 he was elected president of the Czech and Slovak branch of the International Law Association. From 1998 to 2000 he was a member of the Legislative Council and in 2000 he became member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. In 2000 he was appointed as a judge at the constitutional court, and after four years in that post he moved to his current position as a judge at the ECJ.
After the accession of Slovakia to the European Union in 2004 Mr Mazák – a former deputy Minister for Justice and President of the Slovakian Constitutional Court – joined the ECJ on 7 October 2006 as an advocate-general. He qualified from the Pavol Jozef Safarik University, Košice with a Doctor of Laws in 1978. There he became professor of civil law in 1994, and of Community law in 2004. In the same year he was elected head of the Community Law Institute at the faculty of law, Košice. Mr Mazák was appointed as a judge at the Krajský súd (Regional Court), Košice in 1980. In 1982 he was elected vice-president and in 1990 president of the Mestský súd (City Court), Košice. A member of the Slovak Bar in 1991, he worked as a legal adviser at the Constitutional Court from 1993 to 1998. From 1998 to 2000 he worked as deputy Minister for Justice and from 2000 to 2006 he held the prestigious post of the president of the Constitutional Court. In 2004 he also became a member of the Venice Commission.
The professor of international law and holder of the Jean Monnet Chair of European Community law at the University of Bologna, Mr Mengozzi is also a visiting professor at Johns Hopkins University’s Bologna Center, and has worked as visiting professor at the Universities of St Johns, New York (1986), the School of Law of Georgetown University (1990 and 1992), the Faculté de Droit et Sciences Politiques de l’Université de Paris II (1993), Georgia University Law School, Athens (1995) and the Institut Universitaire International, Luxembourg (1994). He was co-ordinator of the European business law Pallas programme of the University of Nijmegen, and a member of the consultative committee of the EC Commission on Public Procurement. An under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry during the Italian tenure of the Presidency of the Council, Mr Mengozzi was a member of the working group of the European Community on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and director of the 1997 session of The Hague Academy of International Law’s research centre devoted to the WTO. On 4 March 1998 he was appointed as a judge at the Court of First Instance and moved to his present position on 4 May 2006 as an advocate-general at the ECJ.
Mr Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro has been an advocate-general at the ECJ since 7 October 2003. Having qualified from the University of Lisbon in 1990 with a degree in law, he then became assistant lecturer at the European University Institute. He obtained his Doctor of Laws from the European University Institute, Florence in 1996. Mr Miguel Poiares Pessoa Maduro has held a variety of academic positions as a visiting professor at the London School of Economics, the College of Europe, Natolin, the Ortega y Gasset Institute, Madrid, the Catholic University, Portugal and the Institute of European Studies, Macao. In addition, he was professor at the Universidade Nova, Lisbon in 1997 and a Fulbright visiting research fellow at Harvard University in 1998. His other academic positions include being co-director of the Academy of International Trade Law, co-editor (Hart Series on European Law and Integration, European Law Journal) and a member of the editorial board of several law journals.
Mr Narciso da Cunha Rodrigues graduated in 1963 from the Univers
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