Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2002:162
Date: 2002-03-12
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Provisions governing the Institutions;Access to documents
Procedure: Action for annulment;Appeal - unfounded
Origin: Germany

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Mere repetition of the pleas and arguments raised before 
the Court of First Instance — Inadmissible — Challenge to the interpretation or 
application of Community law by the Court of First Instance — Admissible 
(Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of 
the Court of Justice, Art. 112(1) (c)) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-41/00 P 
2. Actions for annulment — Judgment annulling a measure — Effects — Obligation to 
adopt measures to comply with the judgment — Scope — Decision need not reiterate 
the grounds given for the contested measure 
(EC Treaty, Art. 176 (now Art. 233 EC); Commission Decision 94/90) 
3. Commission — Power to determine its own internal organisation — Public's right of 
access to Commission documents — Decision 94/90 — Application of the authorship 
rule 
(Commission Decision 94/90) 
4. Commission — Public's right of access to Commission documents — Decision 
94/90 — Exceptions to the principle of access to documents — Strict interpretation 
and application — Authorship rule — Scope 
(Commission Decision 94/90) 
1. It follows from Article 225 EC, the first 
paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute 
of the C o u r t of Jus t ice and 
Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Pro­
cedure of the Court of Justice that an 
appeal must indicate precisely the con­
tested elements of the judgment which 
the appellant seeks to have set aside 
and also the legal arguments specifi­
cally advanced in support of the 
appeal. 
Where an appeal merely repeats or 
reproduces verbatim the pleas in law 
and arguments previously submitted to 
the Court of First Instance, including 
those based on facts expressly rejected 
by that Court, it fails to satisfy the 
requirements to state reasons under 
those provisions. 
However, provided that the appellant 
challenges the interpretation or appli­
cation of Community law by the Court 
of First Instance, the points of law 
examined at first instance may be 
discussed again in the course of an 
appeal. Indeed, if an appellant could 
not thus base his appeal on pleas in law 
and arguments already relied on before 
the Court of First Instance, an appeal 
would be deprived of part of its 
purpose. 
Thus, an appeal which, taken as a 
whole, specifically seeks to challenge 
the position adopted by the Court of 
First Instance on various points of law 
raised before it at first instance is 
admissible provided that it indicates 
clearly the aspects of the judgment 
under appeal which are criticised and 
the pleas in law and arguments on 
which it is based. 
(see paras 15-18) 
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INTERPORC v COMMISSION 
2. When the Court of First Instance 
annuls an act of an institution, that 
in s t i tu t ion is r equ i red , under 
Article 176 of the Treaty (now 
Article 233 EC), to take the measures 
necessary to comply with the Court's 
judgment. In that regard, in order to 
comply with a judgment annulling a 
measure and to implement it fully, the 
institution concerned is required to 
have regard not only to the operative 
part of the judgment but also to the 
grounds which led to the judgment and 
constitute its essential basis, in so far as 
they are necessary to determine the 
exact meaning of what is stated in the 
operative part. It is those grounds 
which, on the one hand, identify the 
precise provision held to be illegal and, 
on the other, indicate the specific 
reasons which underlie the finding of 
illegality contained in the operative 
part and which the institution con­
cerned must take into account when 
replacing the annulled measure. 
However, Article 176 of the Treaty 
requires the institution which adopted 
the annulled measure only to take the 
necessary measures to comply with the 
judgment annulling its measure. 
Accordingly, that article requires the 
institution concerned to ensure that 
any act intended to replace the 
annulled act is not affected by the same 
irregularities as those identified in the 
judgment annulling the original act. 
Therefore, given that it followed from 
the judgment annulling a measure first, 
that the decision which was the subject 
of the action was deemed to have never 
existed and, second, that the Commis­
sion was required, under Article 176 of 
the Treaty, to take a further decision, 
the Court of First Instance was correct 
in ruling that the Commission could 
rely, in the new decision, on grounds 
other than those on which it based the 
annulled decision. 
The possibility of a full review also 
implies that the Commission was not 
supposed, in the contested decision, to 
reiterate all the grounds for refusal 
provided for by Decision 94/90 on 
public access to documents to adopt a 
decision correctly implementing the 
judgment of the Court of First Instance 
but had simply to base its decision on 
those it considered, in exercising its 
discretion, to be applicable in the case. 
(see paras 28-32) 
3. So long as the Community legislature 
has not adopted general rules on the 
right of public access to documents 
held by the Community institutions, 
the institutions must take measures as 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-41/00 P 
to the processing of such requests by 
virtue of their power of internal organi­
sation, which authorises them to take 
appropriate measures in order to 
ensure their internal operation in con­
formity with the interests of good 
administration. 
Against that background, given the 
developments in this field, the Court 
of First Instance did not err in law in 
holding that, in the absence, at the time 
when the contested decision was 
adopted, of a principle or general rules 
of Community law expressly providing 
that the Commission was not 
empowered, under its power of internal 
organisation, to enact the authorship 
rule as provided for by the Code of 
Conduct adopted by Decision 94/90 
according to which, where the docu­
ment held by an institution was written 
by a natural or legal person, a Member 
State, another Community institution 
or body or any other national or inter­
national body, the application must be 
sent direct to the author, that rule 
could be applied in the case. 
(see paras 38, 40, 43) 
4. The aim pursued by Decision 94/90 on 
public access to Commission docu­
ments as well as being to ensure the 
internal operation of the Commission 
in conformity with the interests of good 
administration, is to provide the public 
with the widest possible access to 
documents held by the Commission, 
so that any exception to that right of 
access must be interpreted and applied 
strictly. 
(see paras 48-49) 
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