Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Procedure – Time-limit for instituting proceedings – Claim barred by lapse of time – Unforeseeable circumstances or force majeure – Meaning

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 45, second para.)

2. Procedure – Duty to give reasons for decisions – Scope

3. Procedure – Time-limit for instituting proceedings – Claim barred by lapse of time – Excusable error – Meaning

4. Procedure – Time-limit for instituting proceedings – Application sent by fax – Time-limit for lodging the signed original

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 43(6))

5. Procedure – Application initiating proceedings – Rectification – Conditions

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 21; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(6))

Summary

1. Derogation from the application of the Community rules on procedural time-limits may be made only where the circumstances are quite exceptional, in the sense of being unforeseeable or amounting to force majeure, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 45 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, since the strict application of those rules serves the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimination or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice.

The concepts of force majeure and unforeseeable circumstances contain an objective element relating to abnormal circumstances unconnected with the trader in question and a subjective element involving the obligation, on his part, to guard against the consequences of the abnormal event by taking appropriate steps without making unreasonable sacrifices. In particular, the trader must pay close attention to the course of the procedure set in motion and, in particular, demonstrate diligence in order to comply with the prescribed time-limits. It is not for the Court of First Instance to make good an applicant’s lack of diligence.

(see paras 16-17, 23)

2. The requirement that the Court of First Instance give reasons for its decisions cannot be interpreted as requiring it to respond in detail to every single argument advanced by an applicant, particularly if the argument was not sufficiently clear and precise and was not adequately supported by evidence.

(see paras 20, 34)

3. Full knowledge of the finality of a decision and of the time‑limit for bringing an action under Article 230 EC does not, in itself, prevent an individual from pleading excusable error to justify his application being out of time, since such an error may occur, in particular, when the conduct of the institution concerned has been, either alone or to a decisive extent, such as to give rise to pardonable confusion in the mind of a party acting in good faith and exercising all the diligence required of a normally well-informed person.

(see para. 29)

4. The very wording of Article 43(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance leaves that Court no discretion in the application of that provision. An applicant’s entitlement to rely, for the purposes of compliance with the Rules of Procedure, on the date of receipt of a fax by the Court Registry is subject to the condition that the signed original of the pleading, a copy of which has thus been sent, is received at that Registry no later than 10 days thereafter. Moreover, where the fax is received more than 10 days before the expiry of the time-limit fixed for bringing an action before the Court of First Instance, the provisions of Article 43(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court First Instance do not extend that time-limit.

In those circumstances, a Member State cannot rely on a breach of the principle of proportionality since the action’s inadmissibility was caused by that Member State’s want of diligence in sending the signed original of the application to the Registry of the Court of First Instance within the time-limit at issue, and not by the way in which the Court of First Instance applied Article 43(6) of its Rules of Procedure, a provision which incorporates in those rules modern communication techniques, one of the conditions for the application of which was not fulfilled.

(see paras 38-40)

5. Whilst, under Article 44(6) of the Rules of Procedure, an applicant has the opportunity of putting its application in order, particularly by the dispatch of missing annexes, such putting in order is however possible only to the extent that, under Article 21 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which applies to proceedings before the Court of First Instance, the essential condition for bringing proceedings before the Court of First Instance is satisfied, namely the lodging of the application. The application is the formal document initiating proceedings in which the parties are required to state the subject-matter of the dispute, and beside which the annexes have only a purely evidential and instrumental function. In those circumstances, the lodging of annexes cannot be regarded as equivalent to a partial lodging of the application.

(see para. 41)