CELEX: C2005/132/65
Language: en
Date: 2005-05-28 00:00:00
Title: Case T-144/05: Action brought on 12 April 2005 by Pablo Muñiz against the Commission of the European Communities

28.5.2005   
            
            
               EN
            
            
               Official Journal of the European Union
            
            
               C 132/36
            
         Action brought on 12 April 2005 by Pablo Muñiz against the Commission of the European Communities
   (Case T-144/05)
   (2005/C 132/65)
   Language of the case: English
   An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 12 April 2005 by Pablo Muñiz, residing in Brussels (Belguim), represented by B. Dehandschutter, lawyer.
   The applicant claims that the Court should:
   
               1.
            
            
               annul the Commission decision of 3 February 2005 in so far as it refuses full access to the documents requested by the applicant;
            
         
               2.
            
            
               annul the Commission decision of 3 February 2005 in so far as it refuses partial access to the requested documents;
            
         
               3.
            
            
               order the defendant to bear the costs.
            
         Pleas in law and main arguments
   The applicant is a lawyer specialising in advising clients on customs related issues. In order to best advise his clients the applicant addressed, on 13 October 2004, a request to the Commission for access to the minutes of the September meeting of the Customs Code Committee — Tariff and Statistical Nomenclature Section as well as for access to certain TAXUD documents. This request was refused on 1 December 2004, on the basis of Article 4.3 of Regulation 1049/2001. The applicant requested a review of the initial decision on 15 December 2004. The contested decision was issued as a result of that request, and confirmed the previous decision to refuse access.
   The applicant contends that the contested decision infringes Article 4.3 of Regulation 1049/2001. According to the applicant, the reasons provided for refusing access, namely that disclosure of the requested documents would seriously undermine the Commission's decision making process, are not valid grounds under this provision. The applicant also contends, in the same context, that the contested decision erroneously reasoned by reference to a category of documents rather than evaluate the content of each one of the requested documents.
   The applicant further considers that Article 4.6 of the same regulation was violated, in that the Commission refused even partial access to the requested documents. He also argues that the contested decision circumvents Article 2.1 of that regulation by leading to a systematic refusal to disclose internal documents, on the sole ground that the relevant file is not closed.
   Finally, the applicant considers that an overriding public interest, consisting in the need for interested parties to have a better understanding of the decisions adopted on tariff classifications matters, justified disclosure of the requested documents.