Luxembourg, 28/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance are "not unaware" of the interest of the proposals of the Due report (on the future of the EU's judicial institutions) submitted recently to the European Commission with a view to the Intergovernmental Conference on institutional reform. But the two courts want immediate measures that would give them "the flexibility required to be able to adapt right away".
In the joint report entitled "Contribution to the Intergovernmental Conference", the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance advocate several urgent measures, in particular:
i) Council acceptance by qualified majority of amendments to their rules of procedure. Unanimous approval constitutes "an element of rigidity" that is "harmful" to the Courts;
ii) filtering of cases before the Court to put an end to its backlogging: accordingly, all CFI decisions could not be "quashed" by the Court of Justice, notably decisions on trademark law and civil servants;
iii) attribute additional powers to the CFI which could take "preliminary rulings" in certain types of "circumscribed and specific" matters. Except for exceptional cases, these decisions of the CFI could not be the subject of annulment before the Court to avoid causing "excessive lengthening" of the proceedings;
iv) create a special appeal chamber for contentious issues involving European officials;
v) foresee the possibility of creating other appeal chambers while, at present, the lack of legal base in the Treaty makes the creation of such chambers "problematical".
In the meantime, the representatives of Member States began the examination of proposals by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance aimed at modernising and simplifying their procedures. This is to eliminate certain working methods which are "of another age", by making the despatch of documents by fax or e-mail possible, doing away with the "extension of account of distance" and reducing the "written procedures". Some member States are, it seems, rather reticent about certain innovations.