Luxembourg, 14/10/2003 (Agence Europe) - For whatever reason a web browser opens the European Court of Justice's site, he or she cannot fail to know that the Court has appointed its new president and new judges.
The Court of Justice is for the first time using an advertising tool par excellence, the "pop-up", a window not requested by the browser but which suddenly appears on the screen. This "pop-up" takes up the news of the election of Vassilios Skouris to the presidency of the Court of Justice, news in the form of a press release which also appears on the site's news page.
Some observers consider it is quite normal for the Court to use the latest communication techniques available to make itself known. Others feel this could cause a harmful precedent, with the Court giving preference to certain articles of news rather than others through using "pop-ups".
It should be noted that a brief investigation on-line shows that the supreme national courts in the EU, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the International Court of Justice in The Hague or even the Supreme Court in the United States do not seem to have used the pop-up technique on their home page.