On Tuesday 23 September, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in its judgement in case C-833/19 P, Council v Hamas, that the EU General Court should not have annulled the retention of Hamas on the EU list of terrorist organisations on the grounds that the EU Council had not authenticated the individual statements of reasons for these acts by signature.
On 4 September 2019, the General Court annulled four EU Council acts adopted in 2018 which kept Hamas on this list. It annulled the acts challenged in court by Hamas because of the EU Council’s failure to authenticate, by means of a signature, the explanatory memoranda relating to these acts, which were contained in separate documents.
The Court of Justice finds that the General Court erred in law in holding that the statements of reasons relating to the retention of Hamas on the lists annexed to the contested acts should have been signed by the President and the Secretary-General of the EU Council in the same way as those acts. Moreover, these explanatory memoranda had been adopted by the EU Council at the same time as the aforementioned acts, to which they were inseparably attached, and their authenticity had not been validly called into question.
This is not the first time that the Court of Justice has overturned a decision of the General Court concerning Hamas (see EUROPE 11837/6).
See the Court’s judgement https://bit.ly/3DWMKE8 (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)