Luxembourg, 21/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - "The case-law in 2001 demonstrates the abundance and range of the maters dealt with by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance and the breadth of subjects covered in the various fields of Community law", notes a Court press release on the release of the 2001 Annual Report of the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance. The President, Mr Gil Carlos Rodriguez Iglesias, pointed out in the foreword that the "mere number of the cases decided over the past year cannot provide an accurate measure of the level of judicial activity, since cases brought before the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance, and their degree of complexity, differ so much". The press release says that the statistics at the end of the Report show that the "level of activity of both courts was "consistently high in 2001, substantially comparable to that of the previous year. The number of cases brought to a close was 434 at the Court of Justice and 340 at the Court of First Instance, while new cases brought numbered 504 and 345 respectively."
With regard to its administrative functioning, the "Court of Justice has continued to be concerned with translation issues, in particular in relation to enlargement and the difficulties which will arise from the increase in language combinations and the foreseeable growth in the number of cases" (see more general criticisms made by the former Court of Justice judge Leif Sevon in EUROPE of 4/5 February 2002, p.14, Ed). The Court signalled it had "embarked upon a vast computer project designed to put in place a multilingual tool" for "all the stages in the life of documents, from inception to publication." The President noted at the end of his foreword that "the Court of Justice has begun, in conjunction with the Court of First Instance, to address the future entry into force of the Treaty of Nice (the sharing between them of jurisdiction over direct actions and the setting up of a judicial panel for cases brought by European Union officials)." EUROPE will return to this.