Carmine Salvatore Tralli v European Central Bank.
Date: 2005-05-26
46. In those circumstances, the appellant’s argument that the Court of First Instance misapplied the case‑law relating to the interpretation of Article 110 of the Staff Regulations cannot be accepted. As is clear from paragraph 37 of the judgment in Pflugradt  v ECB , cited above, in exercising their power to apply general implementing measures concerning staff, the position of the management bodies of the ECB is no different to that of the management bodies of other Community institutions and bodies in their relations with their staff. In that context and as regards the ‘principle of institutional balance’, it is sufficient to recall that that principle is intended to apply only to relations between Community institutions and bodies (see, inter alia, Case C-70/88 Parliament v Council  [1990] ECR I‑2041, paragraphs 21 to 23).
58. According to settled case-law, the Community institutions and bodies have a wide discretion as regards their internal organisation on the basis of the responsibilities entrusted to them (see, inter alia, Case C‑15/00 Commission  v EIB [2003] ECR I‑7281, paragraph 67, and Pflugradt  v ECB , cited above, paragraph 43).
59. In particular, the Court has held (see, inter alia, Case 5/85 AKZO Chemie  v Commission [1986] ECR 2585, paragraphs 35 to 37) that the Commission may, without undermining the principle of collegiate responsibility which governs its functioning, authorise its Members to adopt certain decisions in its name. That system of delegation of authority does not have the effect of divesting the Commission of its decision‑making power since the decisions adopted by the Member are adopted in the name of the Commission, which is fully responsible for them. The Court based that assessment inter alia on the need to ensure that the decision-making body is able to function, which corresponds to a principle inherent in all institutional systems.
78. It should be pointed out that, as the Advocate General rightly recalls in points 67 and 68 of his Opinion, it is settled case-law (see, for example, Case C‑122/01 P T. Port v Commission  [2003] ECR I‑4261, paragraph 27) that the Court of Justice has no jurisdiction to establish the facts or, in principle, to examine the evidence which the Court of First Instance accepted in support of those facts. Provided that the evidence has been properly obtained and that the general principles of law and the rules of procedure in relation to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed, it is for the Court of First Instance alone to assess the value which should be attached to the evidence produced to it. That appraisal does not therefore constitute, save where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted, a point of law which is subject to review by the Court of Justice.
88. It should be recalled that, under the second paragraph of Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, ‘no appeal shall lie regarding only the amount of the costs or the party ordered to pay them’. In addition, the Court has held that, where all the other pleas put forward in an appeal have been rejected, any plea challenging the decision of the Court of First Instance on costs must be rejected as inadmissible by virtue of that provision (see Joined Cases C-302/99 P and C‑308/99 P Commission and France  v TF1 [2001] ECR I-5603, paragraph 31, and Joined Cases C-57/00 P and C-61/00 P Freistaat Sachsen and Others v Commission  [2003] ECR I-9975, paragraph 124).