Order — ECLI:EU:C:1998:385
Date: 1998-07-16
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Appeals;Rights of the defence and procedural guarantees;Form of disciplinary measure;Observance of professional secrecy;General
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Appeal - inadmissible;Staff cases

Summary of the O r d e r 
1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Erroneous assessment of the facts — Inadmissible — Erroneous 
assessment of evidence properly adduced — Inadmissible 
(EC Treaty, Art. 168a; EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51) 
2. Appeals — Pleas in law — Mere repetition of the pleas in law and arguments submitted to the 
Court of First Instance — Inadmissible — Appeal dismissed 
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 49 and 51; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 
112(1)(c)) 
3. European Communities — Institutions — Obligations — Observance of professional secrecy 
— Scope — Information provided by a third party — Anonymity of the informant preserved 
— Lawful nature of disciplinary proceedings initiated on the basis of such information — 
Conditions 
(EC Treaty, Art. 214) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-252/97 Ρ 
4. Officials — Disciplinary measures — Disciplinary proceedings — Inapplicability of Article 6 
of the European Convention on Human Rights 
5. Officials — Disciplinary measures — Measure imposed — Discretion of the appointing auth­
ority — Review by the Court — Scope — Limits 
1. Under Article 168a of the Treaty and 
Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of 
Justice, an appeal may rely only on 
grounds relating to infringement of rules 
of law, to the exclusion of any appraisal 
of facts. 
Consequently, where the Court of First 
Instance has established the facts or 
appraised them, the Court of Justice has 
jurisdiction only to exercise review under 
Article 168a of the Treaty with respect to 
the legal characterisation of those facts 
and the inferences in law which the Court 
of First Instance has drawn from it. Simi­
larly, the Court of Justice does not in 
principle have jurisdiction to examine evi­
dence in support of those facts which the 
Court of First Instance has accepted. 
Where that evidence has been properly 
obtained, and the general principles of 
law and rules of procedure governing the 
burden of proof and the taking of evi­
dence have been observed, it is for the 
Court of First Instance alone to assess the 
weight to be attributed to the evidence 
submitted to it. 
2. It follows from the first paragraph of 
Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of 
Justice, in conjunction with Article 
112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure, that 
an appeal must indicate precisely the con­
tested elements of the judgment of the 
Court of First Instance which it is sought 
to have set aside and also the legal argu­
ments supporting the application. 
An appeal which simply repeats or repro­
duces verbatim the pleas in law and argu­
ments already submitted to the Court of 
First Instance, including those based on 
factual allegations expressly dismissed by 
that Court, does not meet that require­
ment; such an appeal amounts, in reality, 
to no more than a request for reconsid­
eration of the application submitted to 
the Court of First Instance, a matter 
which, by virtue of Article 49 of the Stat­
ute of the Court of Justice, falls outside 
the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice. 
3. Article 214 of the Treaty which requires 
the members and the servants of the insti­
tutions of the Community not to disclose 
information of the kind covered by the 
obligation of professional secrecy consti­
tutes a general principle which even 
applies to information supplied by natu­
ral persons, if that information is of the 
kind that is confidential. 
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Ν ν COMMISSION 
In the case of information supplied on a 
purely voluntary basis, accompanied by a 
request for confidentiality in order to 
protect the informant's anonymity, an 
institution which accepts such infor­
mation is bound to comply with such a 
condition. Furthermore, proceedings ini­
tiated on the basis of information from an 
undisclosed source are lawful, provided 
that this does not affect the opportunity 
for the person concerned to make known 
his views on the truth or implication of 
the facts or documents communicated or 
on the conclusions drawn by the Com­
mission from them. 
4. As regards disciplinary measures against 
officials, proceedings before the Commis­
sion are administrative, rather than judi­
cial, with the result that the Commission 
cannot be characterised as a 'tribunal' 
within the meaning of Article 6 of the 
European Convention on Human Rights. 
5. Where the truth of the facts alleged 
against an official is established, it is for 
the appointing authority to choose the 
appropriate disciplinary measure to be 
imposed and that choice may be the sub­
ject of censure by the Community judica­
ture only in the event of manifest error or 
misuse of powers. 
I - 4873