Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2003:403
Date: 2003-07-10
Based on: Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (1957)
Subject matter: Provisions governing the Institutions;Access to documents
Procedure: Appeal - inadmissible;Action for annulment - successful;Appeal - successful
Origin: Finland

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Actions for annulment — Jurisdiction of the Community judicature — Unlimited 
jurisdiction — Issue of directions to an institution — Not permissible 
(Art. 230 EC) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-353/01 P 
2. Appeals — Pleas in law — Mere repetition of the pleas and arguments submitted to 
the Court of First Instance — Inadmissible — Challenge to the interpretation or the 
application of Community law by the Court of First Instance — Inadmissible 
(Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.; Rules of Procedure of 
the Court, Art. 112(1)(c)) 
3. Council — Commission — Public right of access to documents from those institu­
tions — Decisions 93/731 and 94/90 — Exceptions to the principle of access to 
documents — Refusal to grant access to a document made without prior consideration 
of partial access to information not covered by the exceptions — Unlawful — Curing 
a defect in the statement of reasons during the proceedings before the Court — Not 
permissible 
(Council Decision 93/731; Commission Decision 94/90) 
1. In the context of a review of legality on 
the basis of Article 230 EC, the Com­
munity judicature is not entitled to 
issue directions. Accordingly, an appeal 
is inadmissible if the Court is requested 
to invite the Council and Commission 
to reconsider their position and grant 
the appellant access to the documents 
at issue, or to grant him at least partial 
access to the documents after cancel­
ling or editing the sections which may 
justifiably qualify as liable to prejudice 
the international relations of the Euro­
pean Community. 
(see paras 15-16) 
2. It follows from Article 225 EC, the first 
paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute 
of the Cour t of Just 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. How­
ever, provided that the appellant chal­
lenges the interpretation or application 
of Community law by the Court of 
First Instance, the points of law exam­
ined 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. 
(see paras 25-27) 
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MATTILA v COUNCIL AND COMMISSION 
3. The Council and the Commission are 
obliged, under Decisions 93/731 on 
public access to Council documents 
and 94/90 on public access to Com­
mission documents respectively, and in 
accordance with the principle of pro­
portionality, to examine whether par­
tial access should be granted to the 
information not covered by the excep­
tions. In the absence of such an exam­
ination a decision refusing access to a 
document must be annulled as being 
vitiated by an error of law even though, 
in the light of the explanations prof­
fered by the Council and the Commis­
sion in the course of proceedings before 
the Court of First Instance, and in view 
of the nature of the documents at issue, 
that error of law had no effect on the 
outcome of their examination. 
To permit the Council and the Com­
mission to communicate to the appel­
lant the reasons for the refusal to grant 
partial access to a document for the 
first time before the Community courts 
would render redundant the procedural 
guarantees expressly laid down in 
Decisions 93/731 and 94/90 and seri­
ously affect the appellant's rights 
which require that, except in excep­
tional cases, any decisions adversely 
affecting a person must state the rea­
sons on which it is based, in order to 
provide the person concerned with 
details sufficient to allow him to ascer­
tain whether the decision is well 
founded or whether it is vitiated by 
an error which will allow its legality to 
be contested. 
(see paras 30-32) 
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