Case T-345/19: Action brought on 10 June 2019 — Santini v Parliament
Date: 2019-06-10
Institutions: General Court
Subjects: Bureau of the EP, Member of the European Parliament, allowances and expenses, damages, equal treatment, legality, pension scheme, principle of legal certainty, principle of proportionality, retroactivity of a law








C_2019263EN.01005101.xml










5.8.2019   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 263/51






Action brought on 10 June 2019 — Santini v Parliament
(Case T-345/19)
(2019/C 263/59)
Language of the case: Italian

Parties


Applicant: Giacomo Santini (Trento, Italy) (represented by: M. Paniz, lawyer)

Defendant: European Parliament

Form of order sought

The applicant claims that the Court should:






—


annul the communiqué of the European Parliament Directorate-General for Finance implementing Resolution No 14/2018 of 12 July 2018 of the Office of the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and/or Resolution No 6/2018 of the Presidential Council of the Senate of the Italian Republic, and, in any event,










—


annul the redetermination and recalculation of the life annuity disbursed by the European Parliament;










—


accordingly, declare that the applicant is entitled to the maintenance of the life annuity in question in so far as it was accrued and is being accrued on the basis of the legislation in force prior to Resolution No 14/2018 of the Office of the President of the Italian Chamber [of Deputies] and/or Resolution No 6/2018 of the Presidential Council of the Senate of the Italian Republic, and order the European Parliament to pay him all the sums unduly withheld, adjusted for inflation, together with statutory interest from the date of withholding until the date of payment;










—


order the European Parliament to implement the judgment and immediately to restore in full the original amount of the life annuity, and to pay compensation for all damages if and to the extent that damages are payable to the applicant; and










—


in any event, order the Parliament to pay all costs, lawyers’ fees, plus VAT, taxes, duties and flat-rate charges.





Pleas in law and main arguments

In support of the action, the applicant relies on eight pleas in law.






1.


First plea in law, alleging encroachment on the powers reserved to the Bureau of the European Parliament.
The applicant claims that the recalculation of the European life annuity is unlawful inasmuch as it was carried out unilaterally, retroactively and permanently on the basis of an alleged (non-existent) automatic application of Resolution No 14/2018 of the [Office of the President of the] Italian Chamber of Deputies, in the absence of an earlier specific resolution of the Bureau of the European Parliament, to which all powers in such matters are reserved (under Article 25 of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament).










2.


Second plea in law, alleging infringement of the internal rules of the European Parliament.
The applicant claims that the recalculation of the European life annuity is unlawful inasmuch as it contravenes Article 1 of Annex III to the Rules governing the payment of expenses and allowances to Members of the European Parliament in force prior to 2009. When the MEP completed his term of office, his social security position was definitively dealt with under the conditions then in force for national Italian MPs. Any amendments to those conditions, introduced several years later, may not have a retroactive effect on a situation already defined and resolved by the European Parliament in accordance with the conditions in force at the time the right was acquired, since the Italian Chamber of Deputies no longer has any authority in the matter after that point.










3.


Third plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 28 of the Statute for Members.
The applicant claims that the recalculation of the European life annuity is unlawful inasmuch as it contravenes Article 28 of the Statute for Members of the European Parliament and Articles 75 and 76 of the Implementing Measures for that statute, which establish that rights acquired prior to the entry into force of the new statute will be definitively maintained and will be honoured in accordance with the conditions laid down at the time. According to the applicant, it is not possible to derogate from those safeguard clauses, still less by a mere retroactive and permanent resolution of the Office of the President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies, without infringing those clauses and the legitimate expectations of the persons concerned that their life annuity and the amount thereof will not be altered to their detriment, especially not retroactively and as the result of the application of a different, arbitrarily-introduced calculation system.










4.


Fourth plea in law, alleging that the reductive measure is punitive and alleging infringement of the principles of legality, non-retroactivity and non-discrimination.
The applicant claims that the recalculation of the life annuity is unlawful inasmuch as (i) it is punitive and discriminates against a single class of persons (Italian former MEPs) and represents a purely symbolic political intervention devoid of any objective aim to save money and (ii) the recalculation of the life annuity carried out retroactively using different methods and having permanent effects entails an unjustified difference in treatment in comparison with former MEPs from other Member States, MEPs elected after 2009 and all other citizens in general, who are not subject to any such reductive treatment.










5.


Fifth plea in law, alleging infringement of Article 1 of the First Additional Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights.
According to the applicant, a life annuity is an economic disbursement which has become part of the individual assets of members of parliament who receive it or who have become eligible to receive it in the future. The sudden reduction in that annuity, especially where it is the result of a recalculation carried out retroactively using different validation criteria set unilaterally and arbitrarily by the Italian Chamber of Deputies, is tantamount to a tax on the individual assets of members of parliament which, as such, may only be provided for by a Law and which, in any event, should have been justified by a specific public interest which has not been invoked in the present case and in any event does not exist, given that that redetermination of life annuities will not give rise to any tangible savings.










6.


Sixth plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principles of legitimate expectations, legal certainty and the protection of acquired rights.
The applicant alleges unlawfulness on the grounds of manifest failure to observe the principles of regulatory certainty, certainty in legal relations, legitimate expectations and the protection of acquired rights. In his view, the recalculation of the life annuity has retroactive effect, imposing a different method for determining the annuity resulting in a significant definitive and permanent reduction (in the present case, 50 %) after the beneficiary has acquired the right to that annuity well before the adoption of the resolution at issue, thereby radically betraying the natural and legitimate expectation of recipients regarding the effectiveness and stability over time of the life annuity without providing any reasoning to justify such a radical and permanent effect on positions which have already been established and settled for some time.










7.


Seventh plea in law, alleging failure to observe the principles of reasonableness, equal treatment, non-discrimination and solidarity.
The applicant claims that the intervention is unlawful inasmuch as it was adopted without any statement of the reasons therefor or the purposes thereof, exceeding the limits of exceptionality and consentaneity, and ultimately is manifestly at odds with the principles of substantive equality and reasonableness.










8.


Eighth plea in law, alleging further grounds of infringement of the principles of reasonableness, proportionality, equal treatment, non-discrimination and solidarity.
The applicant claims that the intervention in question is unlawful inasmuch as it is at odds with the principles of reasonableness, proportionality, solidarity and equal treatment, given that it: (i) retroactively imposes the contributory system on persons to whom the annuity was disbursed long before Resolution No 14/2018 of the [Office of the President of the] Italian Chamber of Deputies, if not well before the contributory system entered into force via the ‘Dini’ Reform (1996); (ii) alters the legal status of the contributions received from the former member of parliament, while remaining silent, however, on the subject of the fees deducted directly by the Italian Chamber [of Deputies] as a withholding tax; (iii) imposes the retroactive application of a contributory system which, however, is in no way contributory in terms of either its form or its aims; (iv) irrationally and incorrectly applies probabilistic conversion ratios and calculation criteria, referring to the already known past and not to the future; and (v) reveals a clear desire to treat life annuities in the same way as pension rights for public sector employees when these are in reality emoluments of a different nature.