Luxembourg , 13/01/2003 (Agence Europe) - The reforms of the European Court of Justice foreseen in the Nice Treaty, that come into force next month, are in the process of being implemented. Experts believe they are being implemented in stages, from the easiest to the most difficult. The work of the Advocates General will be facilitated from 1 February onwards, it will be several months before the specialist trademark chamber is set up, and even longer before competence is transferred from the Court of Justice to the Court of First Instance.
Advocate Generals
As from 1 February 2003, the Advocate Generals will not longer be obliged to present conclusions for all cases submitted to the Court. For "easy" cases where a Member State admits transgression or where the Court's case law is well-established, the Advocate Generals will be able to "pass", which is supposed to reduce their workload. A "small case" will still require a recital of the facts, case law and a translation, all of which take time, comment the supporters of the measure which completes another measure in force whereby in theory no hearing of the parties will be held unless one of the parties requests it (as often happens). In future, therefore, there could be cases without hearing of the parties or conclusions by the Advocate General (the other three options - hearing without conclusions, conclusions without hearing, and conclusions and hearings, will become more frequent).
New terminology, Chamber Presidents to be elected
From now on, the words "plenary assembly" will be used, rather than cases issued "en grand plenum" (15 judges in the current EU, with 10 more with the arrival of the new Member States). Important cases will be judged in Grand Chamber (what is currently the "Small Chamber" of 13 judges). All other cases will be judged as at present, in chambers of 5 judges (there are 7 judges in fact, to cover roll-overs) and of 3 judges (5 judges in fact). The plenary assembly will only deal with cases of "exceptional importance".
The Chamber Presidents will no longer be appointed by the President, but elected by the judges. Exports point out that two grammatical interpretations of the text mean it is not clear whether the Chamber Presidents will be elected by the judges making up the chamber in question or by all the Court's judges. Watch this space.
It seems that for technical reasons, the reform will not fully come into force until 6 October 2003 when some of the terms of office of the Court of Justice's judges come up for renewal. (It also needs to be adopted by the Council by qualified majority voting.)
Creation of a chamber for officials
In the next few months the Court of Justice will be setting up a chamber with special responsibility for dealing with cases involving European officials (and their employers, the European institutions). Officials unhappy with decisions issued by this chamber will be able to "appeal" to the Court of First Instance. The Court of First Instance's ruling can be reassessed in the event of serious jeopardising of "the unity or coherence of Community law". The Court of Justice and the European Commission are currently working on this wording.
This chamber would be one of the two "jurisdictional chambers" foreseen in the Treaty. The second would be the trademark chamber which is likely to be set up at a later date because of the problems it raises.
Transfer of competence
The Nice Treaty foresees the transfer of competence from the Court of Justice to the Court of First Instance. This political and legal question is currently being studied and experts believe it be difficult to implement.