Luxembourg, 07/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The Finnish government is in the process of contacting lawyers it is considering as the replacement for the Judge Sevon, the Finnish judge at the European Court of Justice, since Sevon has been appointed as the President of the Finnish Supreme Court (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.16). Leif Sevon will be taking up his new position on 1 January 2002, which does not leave the Finns much time to find a replacement and inform other Member States about its decision, especially since under the statute of the European Court of Justice, Judge Sevon cannot leave his post until a successor has been found.
Various names are doing the round. The Finnish media has mentioned judges at the Supreme Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, one of whom is a woman. People in the EU institutional circuit have been mentioned, like Virpi Tiili (Judge at the EU Court of First Instance) or Allan Rosas (Deputy Director General of the European Commission's legal service since his predecessor, Christiaan Timmermans, was appointed as a judge at the European Court of Justice in October 2000).