Uniwersytet Wrocławski and Republic of Poland v Research Executive Agency.
Date: 2020-02-04
14


Thus, the General Court held, in paragraph 18 of the order under appeal, referring to the conception of the lawyer’s role in the legal order of the European Union, which is derived from the legal traditions common to the Member States and on which Article 19 of the Statute is based, and, inter alia, to the judgments of 18 May 1982, AM & S Europe v Commission (155/79, EU:C:1982:157, paragraph 24), of 14 September 2010, Akzo Nobel Chemicals and Akcros Chemicals v Commission and Others (C‑550/07 P, EU:C:2010:512, paragraph 42), and of 6 September 2012, Prezes Urzędu Komunikacji Elektronicznej v Commission (C‑422/11 P and C‑423/11 P, EU:C:2012:553, paragraph 23), that the lawyer’s role is that of collaborating in the administration of justice and of being required to provide, in full independence and in the overriding interests of that cause, such legal assistance as the client needs.
47


Regarding the pleas of inadmissibility raised by the REA, first, on the ground that the appeals contain arguments relating to the assessment of the facts, it should be borne in mind that it follows from Article 256 TFEU and from the first paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute that the General Court has exclusive jurisdiction to establish the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it, and to assess those facts. That assessment does not constitute, save where the evidence produced before the General Court has been distorted, a question of law which is subject, as such, to review by the Court of Justice. When the General Court has established or assessed the facts, the Court of Justice has jurisdiction, under Article 256 TFEU, to review the legal characterisation of those facts by the General Court and the legal conclusions which it has drawn from them.
49


Secondly, in so far as the REA argues that the appeals confine themselves to raising arguments that have already been discussed before the General Court, it should be borne in mind that, where an appellant challenges the interpretation or application of EU law by the General Court, the points of law examined at first instance may be raised again in the course of an appeal. If an appellant could not thus base its appeal on pleas in law and arguments already relied on before the General Court, an appeal would be deprived of part of its purpose (judgment of 27 March 2019, Canadian Solar Emea and Others v Council, C‑236/17 P, EU:C:2019:258, paragraph 124 and the case-law cited).
51


Fourthly, and as regards the statements in intervention made by the Czech Republic and the National Chamber of Legal Advisers, it should be borne in mind that a party which, pursuant to Article 40 of the Statute, is granted leave to intervene in a case before the Court of Justice may not alter the subject matter of the dispute as defined by the forms of order sought and the pleas in law raised by the main parties, so that arguments submitted by an intervener are not admissible unless they fall within the framework provided by those forms of order and pleas in law (judgment of 3 December 2019, Czech Republic v Parliament and Council, C‑482/17, EU:C:2019:1035, paragraph 116).
63


As the General Court correctly recalled in paragraph 19 of the order under appeal, the concept of the independence of lawyers, in the specific context of Article 19 of the Statute, is determined not only negatively, that is to say, by the absence of an employment relationship, but also positively, that is by reference to professional ethical obligations (see, to that effect, judgment of 6 September 2012, Prezes Urzędu Komunikacji Elektronicznej v Commission, C‑422/11 P and C‑423/11 P, EU:C:2012:553, paragraph 24 and the case-law cited).