Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:209
Date: 2000-09-13
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: First Chamber
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Agriculture and Fisheries;Provisions governing the Institutions;Access to documents
Concepts: General
Procedure: Action for annulment - unfounded
Origin: Netherlands

Summary of the Judgment 
Commission — Public's right of access to Commission documents — Decision 94/90 — 
Exceptions to the principle of access to documents — Interpretation — Scope 
(Commission Decision 94/90) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-20/99 
The code of conduct adopted by Decision 
94/90 on public access to Commission 
documents sets out two categories of 
exceptions to the right of access to Com­
mission documents. The first category, 
framed in compulsory terms, comprises 
the 'mandatory exceptions' which are 
intended to protect the interests of third 
parties or of the general public. The second, 
framed in discretionary terms, concerns the 
internal deliberations of the institution, in 
which case solely the interests of the 
institution are at stake. 
In that connection, just as the Commission 
is entitled to invoke jointly an exception 
from the first category and an exception 
from the second category in order to refuse 
access to the documents in its possession, so 
may it also jointly invoke more than one 
exception from the first category. The 
possibility cannot be ruled out that the 
disclosure of certain documents may be 
harmful both to the public interest and to 
the individual interests of third parties. 
(see paras 39-40) 
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