Päivi Leino-Sandberg v European Parliament.
Date: 2021-01-21
27


As regards the plea of inadmissibility, set out in paragraph 22 of this judgment, alleging that the second complaint was not raised before the General Court, it must be recalled that, according to the case-law of the Court of Justice, to allow a party to put forward for the first time before the Court of Justice a plea in law which that party has not raised before the General Court would be to allow it to bring before the Court of Justice a case of wider ambit than that presented before the General Court. In an appeal, the Court’s jurisdiction is, as a general rule, confined to a review of the assessment by the General Court of the pleas argued before it. However, an argument which was not raised at first instance does not constitute a new plea that is inadmissible at the appeal stage if it is simply an amplification of an argument already developed in the context of a plea set out in the application before the General Court (judgment of 10 April 2014, Areva and Others v Commission, C‑247/11 P and C‑253/11 P, EU:C:2014:257, paragraphs 113 and 114 and the case-law cited).
32


It is important to bear in mind that, in accordance with the Court’s settled case-law, an applicant’s interest in bringing proceedings must, in the light of the purpose of the action, exist at the stage of lodging the action, failing which the action will be inadmissible. That purpose must continue to exist, like the interest in bringing proceedings, until the final decision, failing which there will be no need to adjudicate, which presupposes that the action must be liable, if successful, to procure an advantage for the party bringing it (judgments of 28 May 2013, Abdulrahim v Council and Commission, C‑239/12 P, EU:C:2013:331, paragraph 61; of 23 November 2017, Bionorica and Diapharm v Commission, C‑596/15 P and C‑597/15 P, EU:C:2017:886, paragraphs 84 and 85; of 6 September 2018, Bank Mellat v Council, C‑430/16 P, EU:C:2018:668, paragraph 50; and of 17 October 2019, Alcogroup and Alcodis v Commission, C‑403/18 P, EU:C:2019:870, paragraph 24).
33


In the present case, it must be held that even if the document at issue has been disclosed by a third party, the decision at issue has not been formally withdrawn by the Parliament, with the result that the legal proceedings, contrary to what the General Court held, in particular in paragraphs 27 and 28 of the order under appeal, retained their purpose (see, to that effect, the judgment of 4 September 2018, ClientEarth v Commission, C‑57/16 P, EU:C:2018:660, paragraph 45 and the case-law cited).
34


Therefore in order to ascertain whether the General Court should have ruled on the substance of the action, it is necessary to examine, in accordance with the case-law of the Court recalled in paragraph 32 of this judgment, whether the appellant could continue to invoke, notwithstanding that disclosure, an interest in bringing proceedings, which requires the determination of whether the appellant has obtained, by that disclosure, full satisfaction having regard to the objectives she pursued by her request for access to the document in question (see, to that effect, the judgment of 4 September 2018, ClientEarth v Commission, C‑57/16 P, EU:C:2018:660, paragraph 47).
36


In that regard, it should be borne in mind that, in accordance with recital 1 thereof, Regulation No 1049/2001 reflects the intention of the European Union legislature, expressed in the second paragraph of Article 1 TEU, to mark a new stage in the process of creating an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe, in which decisions are taken as openly as possible and as closely as possible to the citizen (judgment of 4 September 2018, ClientEarth v Commission, C‑57/16 P, EU:C:2018:660, paragraph 73 and the case-law cited).
37


That core EU objective is also reflected in Article 15(1) TFEU, which provides that the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the European Union are to conduct their work as openly as possible, that principle of openness also being expressed in Article 10(3) TEU and in Article 298(1) TFEU, and in the enshrining of the right of access to documents in Article 42 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (judgment of 4 September 2018, ClientEarth v Commission, C‑57/16 P, EU:C:2018:660, paragraph 74 and the case-law cited).
38


From that perspective, Regulation No 1049/2001 seeks, as recital 4 and Article 1 thereof state, to confer on the public as wide a right of access as possible to documents of the EU institutions (judgment of 1 July 2008, Sweden and Turco v Council, C‑39/05 P and C‑52/05 P, EU:C:2008:374, paragraph 33).
41


Article 4 of the regulation lists exhaustively the exceptions to the right of public access to documents of the institutions on the basis of which the institutions may refuse access to a document, in order to prevent disclosure of the document from undermining one of the interests protected by Article 4 (see, to that effect, judgment of 28 November 2013, Jurašinović v Council, C‑576/12 P, EU:C:2013:777, paragraph 44 and the case-law cited).