3.

The chief problem in the present case is that of determining where the limits on proceedings under Article 40 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice for the interpretation of judgments lie. Do they amount merely to an attempt at elucidation of what the Court of Justice has held in judgment on a concrete case, what its intention was in that case, or can the procedure also be used to establish who, apart from the parties to the proceedings, may be affected by the findings of the Court of Justice, and to whom the legal force of the decision of the Court and the grounds upon which it is based extend? In effect, according to the applicant's express statements made during the oral procedure, only the last problem mentioned above arises. The findings of the Court of Justice in its Judgment of 14 July 1967, that Article 22 of Regulation No 19 had been wrongfully applied (non-existence of the conditions required for the adoption of protective measures) and that the Commission had been guilty of a breach of duty in relation to the adoption of such protective measures, leave no doubt, as the applicant has emphasized, as to the meaning of these findings in relation to the application to be judged by the Court of Justice. In the applicant's view, the only point at issue is whether they are also binding upon a national court before which an action for damages has been brought against the Federal Government, based on the same facts. Accordingly it must be considered whether proceedings under Article 40 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the EEC can also serve the purpose of deciding the ‘scope’ in this sense of the legal effect of a judgment. I have strong reservations about adopting such a view of the meaning and purpose of the procedure for the interpretation of judgments. If a parallel can be discerned in the interpretation of legal provisions, the purpose of which is to ascertain the intentions of the legislator, then, in the case of the interpretation of a judgment, it is appropriate to think of it as a clarification of what the Court of Justice wished to say in a concrete case. Viewed in this way, there can be no doubt that it is not a question of the interpretation of a judgment if the limits of its legal force are to be determined. The Court of Justice is not empowered to do this; a judgment contains no statements on this subject. The extent of the legal effects of a judgment are to be ascertained rather by an interpretation of the Community law which regulates the matter, either expressly or implicitly, and which forms the basis of the Court's decisions. A clarification of this sort can therefore more usefully be sought by way of proceedings under Article 177 of the EEC Treaty, that is to say in the context of a provision which embraces acts of the Court of Justice and also allows a discussion — as has been shown in other cases — of problems relating to the scope of Community law. Moreover, it seems to me that the case law of the Court already enshrines this view, according to the Opinion of Mr Advocate-General Roemer in Case 70/63A (High Authority of the ECSC v Umberto Collotti and the Court of justice of the European Communities, Rec. 1965, p. 373). The following quotation is taken from that Judgment (p. 380): ‘According to this provision’ (i.e. Article 40) ‘only those applications for interpretation are admissible which are based not upon disputes regarding the possible effects of the judgment at issue on cases other than that in which it was pronounced, but upon such obscurity or ambiguity as affects the meaning and scope of the judgment itself in so far as it decides the matter at issue.’ In my opinion this dictum should be upheld. It cannot be objected that this would deprive the word ‘scope’ in Article 40 of the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice of its significance. In fact, even according to the narrow interpretation which I propose for the abovementioned provision, the concept retains its full meaning. One only has to think of proceedings joined by several applicants or defendants, or in which a series of provisions is at issue and in which, when judgment has been given, it may not be clear to which of the parties or provisions at issue certain statements of the Court of Justice refer. One can also cite the example of proceedings in which a large number of points is at issue, which are not all decided definitively at the same time, and where accordingly there can be some doubt as to the determination of the scope of an interlocutory judgment. In all these cases there is certainly some point in enquiring as to the ‘scope’ of a judgment in the context of the application for interpretation, as I understand it. They show that it is by no means necessary to refer the word ‘scope’ so to speak to the external effects of a judgment, thereby justifying the question whether a judgment is such that its effect extends beyond the parties to the proceedings. All the foregoing reflections bring me to the conclusion that the application for interpretation made by the Gesellschaft fur Getreidehandel, precisely because it is concerned only with the last-mentioned effects, does not fall within the ambit of Article 40 and must accordingly be dismissed as inadmissible.