Order — ECLI:EU:F:2014:116
Date: 2014-05-22
Language of the case: Italian
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases

Summary Judicial proceedings — Representation of the parties — Exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s representative (Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 32(1)) The conduct of a lawyer representing a party before the courts of the European Union, which consists of bringing actions on the basis of almost identical facts to those having led to earlier actions dismissed as manifestly unfounded or manifestly inadmissible, or relying on the same pleas in law indicative of the party’s propensity to resort to legal proceedings automatically and indiscriminately, may be regarded as incompatible with the requirements of the proper administration of justice. That is true where, by such conduct, the lawyer heedlessly contributes to the vexatious conduct of the party concerned, which, taking account of the particularly high number of actions brought by the latter before the Courts of the European Union — of which a lawyer exercising ordinary care must have been aware — has proved to be especially prejudicial to the proper administration of justice. In those circumstances, it is appropriate to apply Article 32(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal by excluding the legal representative from the proceedings. That exclusion requires the party concerned to change his legal representative, but it has no effect on the Civil Service Tribunal’s assessment of the substance of the action, which remains before it unless the party withdraws it. (see paras 12, 19, 20, 25, 26)