Brussels, 13/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Italian Radical, Mauritzio Turco submitted a request to the Court of First Instance on 28 February, to cancel a decision of the Council, which had refused access to certain documents on the agenda of the Justice and Home Affairs Council on 14-15 October 2002. Mr Turco stressed in a communiqué that the Council had denied him full access to five documents: for four of them it "censured the identity of the national delegations", for the other, it refused access to an opinion by the legal service. Mr Turco complained that this had prevented him from inspecting the development of European legislation and that the Council had breached: Article 6 of the treaty on respect for civil and political rights: several Articles of the 2001 regulation on access to EP, Council and Commission documents, as well as the principle of proportionality; the obligation to motivate decisions to retain documents.
Mr Turco complained that, "The council's practice of censuring the identity of the national delegations in legislative documents is a breach of fundamental human and political rights of the citizen. The right of citizens to know what position has been taken by their representatives during the elaboration of legislation is the very basis of democracy. The Council is, with the legislative organ of North Korea, the only institution that meets behind closed doors and hence denies such rights…Citizens cannot therefore judge the behaviour of their government at the Council, a fundamental element, for example, in exercising their voting rights at European and national elections, in full knowledge of the facts". The Italian MEP from the Lista Bonino, also emphasised that the opinions of the legal service should be diffused (except if it is dealing with legal assistance to the Council in trials), as recently confirmed by the European Ombudsman.