Brussels, 09/12/2014 (Agence Europe) - Once the European Parliament has deemed a petition submitted by an official to be admissible, it has broad discretion as to the next step to be taken. This discretion cannot be subjected to the controls of the EU judges, the Court of Justice of the EU states in a ruling (case C-261/13) returned on Tuesday 9 December.
A former Parliament official sent the institution a petition in respect of his staff report for 2005. The petitions committee declared his petition admissible and forwarded it to the director of human resources, stating that it was unable to deal with the substance of the petition. The individual challenged the decision, arguing that the petitions committee should have examined the content of his petition itself.
In its verdict, the Court upholds an earlier ruling (T-186/11) of the General Court of the EU, which had already rejected the official's action. Both courts take the view that the Parliament has considerable political discretion to decide on the next steps to be taken regarding a petition which has been ruled admissible. Whether the Parliament decides to act, or to forward a petition to one of its services, is a matter for the institution itself to decide and the European courts may not exert any influence over this procedure, the Court found. (JK)