Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Procedure ° Intervention ° Application for interim measures ° Persons concerned ° Main proceedings relating to the annulment of a decision not to admit an artist to a competition for selecting works of art for a building of a Community institution ° Chairman and members of the Staff Committee of the institution ° Inadmissibility

(Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice (EEC), Art. 37, second para.)

2. Application for interim measures ° Suspension of operation of a measure ° Conditions for granting ° Serious and irreparable damage ° Balancing of all the interests involved ° Request for suspension of the work of a committee responsible for selecting works of art for a building of a Community institution

(EEC Treaty, Art. 185; Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 104(2))

Summary

1. An interest in the result of the case, within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 37 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice, must be understood as a direct, existing interest in the success or failure of the submissions which relate specifically to the measure whose annulment or suspension is sought.

In the context of an application for the adoption of interim measures in connection with a main action whose object is essentially the annulment of the decision not to admit a self-employed artist to the second stage of a competition for selecting the works of art to be installed in the new building of a Community institution, an application by the chairman and members of the institution' s Staff Committee to intervene in support of the form of order sought by the applicant, seeking suspension of the work of the committee for selecting works of art, is thus inadmissible. They are unable to refer to any special circumstances which could establish the existence of a personal interest in the admission of the applicant to the second stage of the competition, nor can they demonstrate that their position might be affected in a sufficiently specific manner by the outcome of the case before the Court of First Instance.

2. A court hearing an application for interim measures must assess the urgency of the interim measures sought by examining whether the operation of the disputed acts, before a decision on the substance of the case, is capable of causing the party seeking interim measures irreversible damage which could not be remedied even if the contested decision were annulled or damage which, despite its provisional nature, would be out of proportion to the defendant' s interest in having those acts implemented, even where they are the subject of proceedings. It is for the party requesting interim measures to prove that it cannot wait for the outcome of the main proceedings without suffering damage that would entail serious and irreparable consequences.

Those conditions are not satisfied by an application for suspension of the work of a committee responsible for selecting, in a competition for artists, the works of art to be installed in a new building of an institution, submitted by a candidate in that competition, since passing the first stage of the competition would by no means have made it certain that the applicant' s work would have been selected in the final stage, since it has not been shown that the applicant' s interests could not be accorded retroactive protection if her main application was successful, and, finally, since the damage she might suffer is not in proportion to the institution' s interest in obtaining the results of the competition at a date in line with that planned for the inauguration of the building.