On Monday 29 July, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled in case C-119/23 that a Member State that has set up a group of independent experts to assess candidates for the office of judge of the General Court of the EU may propose a candidate from the list other than the highest-ranked candidate, provided that he or she satisfies the requirements of independence and professional capacity laid down in the Treaties.
While Virgilijus Valančius led the merit list of candidates for his own succession, the Lithuanian government decided in May 2022 to nominate the 2nd on the list as a candidate for the post of judge of the General Court.
After an unfavourable opinion from the 255 Panel, the Lithuanian government proposed the 3rd judge, approved by the 255 Panel and appointed by the Member States, in September 2023 as judge for the General Court. Mr Valančius has asked the Vilnius Regional Administrative Court to annul the Lithuanian government’s decisions. This court asked the Court of Justice about the impact of Union law on national procedures for proposing candidates for the office of judge of the General Court.
In its judgment, the Court of Justice considers that the substantive conditions and procedural arrangements relating to the appointment of judges to the General Court must make it possible to exclude any legitimate doubt as to whether they satisfy the requirements for the performance of their duties. The integrity of the appointment procedure must therefore be guaranteed.
The Court considers that, in the absence of specific provisions in Union law, it is for each Member State to regulate the procedural arrangements for proposing a candidate. According to the Court, where a Member State has established a procedure for selecting candidates in which a group of independent experts is responsible for drawing up a merit list, the mere fact of proposing a candidate on that list other than the highest-ranked is not, in itself, sufficient to conclude that the proposal is such as to give rise to legitimate doubts as to whether the proposed candidate meets the requirements.
In addition, for the purposes of adopting its opinion, the 255 Panel must check that the proposed candidate meets the requirements set out in the Treaties.
Finally, the task of ensuring that these requirements are met falls to the governments collectively, when they appoint the candidate proposed by one amongst them as a judge of the General Court.
See the judgment: https://aeur.eu/f/d6y (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)