Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1. Actions for annulment — Jurisdiction of the Community judicature — Unlimited jurisdiction — Issue of directions to an institution — Not permissible — (Art. 230 EC)

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 institutions — 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)

Summary

1. In the context of a review of legality on the basis of Article 230 EC, the Community 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 cancelling or editing the sections which may justifiably qualify as liable to prejudice the international relations of the European Community.

see paras 15-16

2. It follows from Article 225 EC, the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 112(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically 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. However, provided that the appellant challenges the interpretation or application of Community law by the Court of First Instance, the points of law examined 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

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 Commission documents respectively, and in accordance with the principle of proportionality, to examine whether partial access should be granted to the information not covered by the exceptions. In the absence of such an examination 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 proffered by the Council and the Commission 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 Commission to communicate to the appellant 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 seriously affect the appellant ' s rights which require that, except in exceptional cases, any decisions adversely affecting a person must state the reasons on which it is based, in order to provide the person concerned with details sufficient to allow him to ascertain 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