Brussels, 26/05/2000 (Agence Europe) - As we have already indicated, the latest meetings of the IGC, both at ministerial and Preparatory group level, have covered the modifications to the Treaty that the enlargement could require with regard to institutions other than the Commission and Council. In particular, France and Greece have both presented a Memorandum on the reform of the EU jurisdictional system.
The strengthening of the efficiency of the EU jurisdictional system is
"the most important stake for the French government"
In its 24 page Memorandum, France asserts that the reform of the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance is "necessary", notably in the shadow of the next enlargement: in fact, in noting that the pre-jurisdictional questions represent the most significant share of the Court of Justice's work, it feels that it is foreseeable that the number of pre-jurisdictional questions asked by the jurisdictions of the new Member States, "still only slightly familiar with Community law, will be relatively significant." The Memorandum, which underlines that the strengthening of the efficiency of the EU system is a "high priority stake for the French government", suggests, in particular, that they study "certain modest improvements, though concrete and whose effects could be appreciated," consisting of: - so as to reduce the time between the hearing and reading by the Advocate General and between the latter and the deliberations, consider in the simple cases, and if the oral phase has not brought anything new with regard to the written phase, that the Advocate General may give his conclusions at the end of the hearing and that the deliberation be started immediately; - to strengthen the human means, create a team of public auditors attached to the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, beside those that are personally attached to each judge; - to obtain better training of the national magistrates in Community law, assign to the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance jurists, notably magistrates, who will be able to be the correspondents of the national jurisdictions. Furthermore, France proposes:
1. A new distribution of competences between the Court of First Instance and the Court of Justice. Thus, France hopes that the role of the Court of First Instance be strengthened and its competences extended, but, on the other hand, so that it remains attached to the "central role of the Court of Justice", it feels that the Court of Justice must continue to know in first and last resort of the appeals made by the Member States and institutions, and maintain the last word on Community law as a whole. In particular France would be favourable to:
- A precise and limited transfer to the Court of First Instance, in certain areas, of the competence to know pre-jurisdictional questions (for example in terms of brand law or civil law issued from the Brussels convention);
- As for the contentious issue of State violations (which occupies an excessive place in the Court of Justice's work (a quarter of cases) with regard to rather minor legal questions that, in most cases, it examines)", a simplification of the procedure before the Court of Justice, for the failings established and not seriously contested;
- To avoid a multiplication of powers, especially dilatory (while the principal must be maintained and that all of the Court of First Instances rulings must be susceptible to appeal), a "filtering" procedure, in the form of a "prior admission" of the appeal (an ad hoc training of the Court of Justice could rule on the admission of appeal);
- Concerning the specialised disputes, the creation within the Court of First Instance of specialised chambers, by identifying "some blocks of competences: brands, drawings and models, vegetable products and patents, public service, questions of civil law and judicial co-operation in civil matters." Noting that the public service dispute occupies "an excessive burden" in the workings of the Court of First Instance, France supports the Courts of Justice's suggestion to create, within the Community administration, inter-institutional chambers with a non-jurisdictional nature that would initially deal with public service disputes.
2. The composition and functioning of Community jurisdictions in the shadow of the enlargement. According to France, in particular:
- It is possible to maintain the principal of one judge per State only if in-depth reforms are accompanied in the functioning of the Court of Justice (see below), while the proposal, made by the Court of Justice itself to increase by 6 judges the staff of the Court of First Instance seem satisfactory, as such as increase will be necessary to tackle the increase in general disputes and the growth of specialised disputes (in the long-term, according to France, we could even envisage a Court of First Instance made up of 40 or even 50 judges). As to the length of the judge's mandate, France believes that the present system (6 years renewable) can "be maintained without inconvenience."
- so as to improve the way the Court works, the role of the chambers should be strengthened and, especially, the composition of the plenary formation should be reviewed, so that the latter no longer comprises all the judges, but only some of them (between 11 and 15). As for the Court of First Instance (CFI), there too, based on the model adopted for the EU Court, a smaller plenary formation should be provided for.
Greece proposes a 9-year term of office for judges
In its more succinct, 3-page, Memorandum, Greece (which recalls that it had already raised the need for a reform of the EU's jurisdictional system in the IGC of 1996-97) places special emphasis on maintaining the rule of one judge per Member State and, considering a 6-year term of office to be inadequate and 12 years excessive, it proposes a mid-way solution with a non-renewable 9 year term. Greece also "shares the fear" that the functioning of the Court and CFI should be impeded by the presence of a large number of judges sitting in plenary formation, and finds acceptable the solution by which, following the next enlargement, the quorum for the plenary formation would be assured when half the number of all the judges (plus one or two to secure an odd number) has been attained. Greece also accepts the creation of specialised chambers, but rejects a specialisation of judges.
Finally, regarding procedures, Athens recommends attributing to the European Commission the faculty of statuting, "through a duly reasoned act and having executory power, on issues that should be the subject of a an appeal for failure to take action" in case of non-compliance with Community directives, when it concerns an "obvious failure to take action".