Keywords

Summary



Keywords

1 Appeals - Appeal against an order dismissing an application for revision - Interpretation of the phrase `fact which is of such a nature as to be a decisive factor' in Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of Justice - Point of law - Admissible

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 41, first para., and 49, first para.)

2 Actions for annulment - Jurisdiction of the Community judicature - Unlimited jurisdiction - Issue of directions to an institution - Not permissible

(EC Treaty, Arts 172 (now Art. 229 EC) and 173 (now, after amendment, Art. 230 EC); Council Regulation No 17, Art. 17)

3 Procedure - Revision of a judgment - Conditions governing the admissibility of the application - Fact relied on must pre-date delivery of the judgment under appeal - Fact relied on must have been unknown to the party seeking revision

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 41)

Summary

1 An appeal may be lodged against decisions in which the Court of First Instance dismissed applications for revision as inadmissible. It would be manifestly contrary to the first paragraph of Article 49 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, pursuant to which an appeal may be brought before the Court of Justice against final decisions of the Court of First Instance, for that not to be the case.

The interpretation of the phrase `fact which is of such nature as to be a decisive factor, and which, when the judgment was given was unknown to the Court and to the party claiming the revision' in the first paragraph of Article 41 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice is a point of law, which may be examined in appeal proceedings.

2 When exercising judicial review of legality under Article 173 of the Treaty (now, after amendment, Article 230 EC), the Community judicature has no jurisdiction to issue directions. The same applies when, pursuant to Article 17 of Regulation No 17, the Community judicature has unlimited jurisdiction in accordance with Article 172 of the Treaty (now Article 229 EC).

3 It is clear from the actual wording of Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of Justice that, in order for an application for revision to be admissible, the fact relied on must have been unknown to the party claiming revision when the judgment was given. The Court of First Instance was therefore perfectly correct in holding that since that condition was not satisfied there was no need to ascertain whether the facts relied on were new.

Moreover, under the second paragraph of Article 41, it is only if the Court finds that a new fact exists, recognises that it is of such a character as to lay the case open for revision and declares the application admissible on that ground that it can examine the substance of the case. It follows that, if and as long as no new fact has been found, the revision procedure cannot be used to prompt the court hearing the application to order new measures of inquiry. Accordingly, the Court of First Instance properly applied Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of Justice when it refused to order measures of inquiry for discovering facts the existence of which had not been established by an applicant in its application for revision, and that it rightly confined its examination to the facts that the applicant had set out in that application.