Claudia Gualtieri v European Commission.
Date: 2010-04-15
26. In the present case, the plea in law based on the adoption of the 2008 SNE decision, which occurred in the course of the proceedings before the Court of Justice, is in any event ineffective, since the legality of a Community measure must be assessed on the basis of the facts and the law as they stood at the time when the measure was adopted (see Joined Cases 15/76 and 16/76 France  v Commission  [1979] ECR 321, paragraph 7; Case C‑449/98 P IECC  v Commission  [2001] ECR I-3875, paragraph 87; and Case C-443/07 P Centeno Mediavilla and Others  v Commission  [2008] ECR I-10945, paragraphs 110 and 111).
37. Thus, the arguments relating to the legal status of an SNE may be regarded as amplifying the plea raised by the appellant before the General Court concerning infringement of the principle of equality in the application of the SNE decision. It is clear from the case-law that a plea which may be regarded as amplifying a plea made previously, whether directly or by implication, in the original application must be considered admissible (see, inter alia, Case 306/81 Verros  v Parliament  [1983] ECR 1755, paragraph 9; Case C-412/05 P Alcon v OHIM  [2007] ECR I‑3569, paragraphs 38 to 40; and Case C-71/07 P Campoli  v Commission  [2008] ECR I‑5887, paragraph 63).
39. As regards the substance, the question whether the grounds of a judgment of the General Court are contradictory or inadequate is a question of law which is amenable, as such, to review on appeal (see, in particular, judgment of 11 January 2007 in Case C-404/04 P Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau  v Commission , paragraph 90, and Joined Cases C-120/06 P and C-121/06 P FIAMM et FIAMM Technologies  v Council and Commission  [2008] ECR I-6513, paragraph 90).
40. In the context of an appeal, the purpose of review by the Court of Justice is, inter alia, to consider whether the General Court responded to the requisite legal standard to all the arguments raised by the appellant (see, to that effect, Case C‑185/95 P Baustahlgewebe  v Commission  [1998] ECR I‑8417, paragraph 128; Case C-359/01 P British Sugar  v Commission  [2004] ECR I-4933, paragraph 47; and Joined Cases C‑189/02 P, C‑202/02 P, C-205/02 P to C-208/02 P and C‑213/02 P Dansk Rørindustri and Others  v Commission  [2005] ECR I-5425, paragraph 244).
41. However, as the Court of Justice has consistently held, the requirement that the General Court give reasons for its decisions cannot be interpreted as meaning that it is obliged to respond in detail to every single argument advanced by the appellant, particularly if the argument is not sufficiently clear and precise (see, in particular, Case C‑274/99 P Connolly  v Commission  [2001] ECR I-1611, paragraph 121; Case C‑197/99 P Belgium  v Commission  [2003] ECR I‑8461, paragraph 81; Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau  v Commission , paragraph 90; and FIAMM et FIAMM Technologies  v Council and Commission , paragraph 91).
52. It should be recalled that, according to settled case-law, a complaint directed against a ground included in a decision of the General Court purely for the sake of completeness cannot lead to the decision being set aside and is therefore nugatory ( Dansk Rørindustri and Others  v Commission , paragraph 148, and orders of 23 February 2006 in Case C-171/05 P Piau  v Commission , paragraph 86, and of 9 March 2007 in Case C‑188/06 P Schneider Electric  v Commission , paragraph 64).
67. As regards the argument that the General Court erred in law in examining whether there was any form of sex discrimination, it is sufficient to observe, as is also evidenced by paragraph 22 of the appeal, that the appellant expressly raised infringement of Article 141 EC before that court. That provision is a specific expression of the general principle of equality of the sexes (see Case C‑277/04 P Lindorfer  v Council  [2007] ECR I‑6767, paragraph 50).
70. In that connection, it should be recalled that the principle of equal treatment or non-discrimination requires that comparable situations must not be treated differently and that different situations must not be treated in the same way unless such treatment is objectively justified (Case C-344/04 IATA and ELFAA  [2006] ECR I-403, paragraph 95; Case C-300/04 Eman and Sevinger  [2006] ECR I-8055, paragraph 57; and Lindorfer  v Council , paragraph 63).
75. However, it must be observed that, although de facto  unions and legally recognised unions, such as marriage, may display similarities in certain respects, those similarities do not necessarily mean that those two types of union must be treated in the same way.
81. The Court has already held that although in borderline cases fortuitous problems must arise from the introduction of any general and abstract system of rules, there are no grounds for taking exception to the fact that the legislature has resorted to categorisation, provided that it is not in essence discriminatory having regard to the objective which it pursues (Case 147/79 Hochstrass  v Court of Justice  [1980] ECR 3005, paragraph 14). The same conclusion applies a fortiori  where those borderline cases give rise to fortuitous advantages.
83. First, the Court has already noted that SNEs who work at the Commission on an ad hoc basis are not covered by the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Communities (see, also, judgment of 24 January 2008 in Case C-211/06 P Adam  v Commission , paragraph 52).
86. By calling into question the position taken by the Commission before the General Court, the appellant seeks merely the re-examination of the application submitted to the General Court, which the Court of Justice does not have jurisdiction to undertake (see, inter alia, Case C‑352/98 P Bergaderm and Goupil  v Commission  [2000] ECR I-5291, paragraph 35).
104. The Court of Justice has already held that the General Court is obliged to reject as inadmissible a head of claim in an application brought before it if the essential matters of law and of fact on which the head of claim is based are not indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself, and the failure to state such matters in the application cannot be compensated for by putting them forward at the hearing (see Case C-214/05 P Rossi v OHIM [2006] ECR I‑7057, paragraph 37).
111. It should be recalled that, under the second paragraph of Article 58 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, ‘[n]o appeal shall lie regarding only the amount of the costs or the party ordered to pay them’. In addition, according to settled case-law, where all the other pleas put forward in an appeal have been rejected, any plea challenging the decision of the General Court on costs must be rejected as inadmissible by virtue of that provision (see, inter alia, Case C-396/93 P Henrichs  v Commission  [1995] ECR I-2611, paragraphs 65 and 66; Joined Cases C‑302/99 P and C‑308/99 P Commission and France  v TF1  [2001] ECR I-5603, paragraph 31; and Case C-301/02 P Tralli  v ECB  [2005] ECR I-4071, paragraph 88).