Luxembourg, 21/04/2005 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Court of Justice has just rejected the appeal of German journalist Hans-Martin Tillack, which requested the setting aside of the interim order of Bo Vesterdorf, president of the Court of First Instance in an OLAF case. Tillack had asked Vesterdorf to temporarily suspend the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) decision to send information to the German authorities that was likely to reveal his sources he based two of his articles published in the German Stern magazine on irregularities denounced in a memorandum by Paul van Buitenen who was then a European official and who is now an MEP. Vassilios Skouris said that he found no error legal error in the reasoning of the president of the Court of First Instance, which allowed a the interim order to be set aside (EUROPE 8809).
Hans-Martin Tillack unsuccessfully requested the president of the Court to rule on his demand to order the Belgian authorities to abstain from any examination of any information that had fallen into their possession following the search of his home and workplace in March 2004.
The basic ruling in the affair will probably not be made before 2006. Hans-Martin Tillack is calling for the contested transmission to the German authorities to be entirely dropped and that he receives compensation for the damages he considers he has incurred in this affair.