Order — ECLI:EU:F:2013:122
Date: 2013-07-12
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Single Judge
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - inadmissible

Summary Judicial proceedings — Application initiating proceedings — Formal requirements — Handwritten signature of a lawyer — Substantive rule of strict application — Application submitted by fax — Signature of the lawyer placed by means of a stamp or another means of reproduction — Date of receipt of the fax unable to be taken into account for the purpose of determining compliance with the period prescribed for bringing an action — Lodging of the duly signed application out of time — Action manifestly inadmissible (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 21; Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 34(1); Staff Regulations, Art. 91(3)) The requirement of a handwritten signature on the application initiating the proceedings for the purposes of the first subparagraph of Article 34(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal seeks, with the aim of legal certainty, to guarantee the authenticity of the application and to preclude the risk that it is not in reality the work of the lawyer or counsel authorised for that purpose. That requirement must therefore be regarded as a substantial procedural requirement and be strictly applicable, so that failure to comply with it renders the action inadmissible. In that regard, the indirect and mechanical fashion of ‘signing’ consisting in placing on the application initiating the proceedings a stamp reproducing the signature of the lawyer instructed by the applicant does not in itself enable it to be ascertained that it was necessarily the lawyer himself that signed the procedural document in question. Consequently, an application lodged by fax and signed by means of a stamp reproducing the lawyer’s signature or another mode of reproduction does not bear the original of the signature of the applicant’s lawyer, contrary to the first subparagraph of Article 34(1) of the Rules of Procedure, and must for that reason be declared inadmissible. It follows that the date of receipt of that document sent by fax cannot be applied for the purpose of determining whether the period for bringing an action provided for in Article 91(3) of the Staff Regulations was observed and that the only application that can be taken into account for that purpose is the one received at the Registry of the Civil Service Tribunal and which bears the handwritten signature of the applicant’s lawyer. Where that application arrives at the Registry after the expiry of the period prescribed for bringing an action, it must be considered to be out of time, thus rendering the action inadmissible. (see paras 28-29, 32-33) See: 23 May 2007, T‑223/06 P Parliament v Eistrup, para. 50