Brussels, 13/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - During a conference in Brussels on 13 February, the European Court of Justice press office presented the legal statistics for 2005 to the Court and the European Court of First Instance. The Court said that it had observed an improvement in its work due to new methods and the arrival of new judges following enlargement.
The Court says that last year's statistics were marked by a reduction of pending cases by around 12%, compared to the previous year and 24% over two years. In 2005, the Court closed 574 cases, 68.3% of pending cases up to 31 December 2004. At the same time, the number of cases introduced decreased in 2005 to 474 from 531 in 2004. For the second consecutive year the Court closed more cases than it received, which explains the decrease in the number of pending cases, which stood at 740 at the end of 2005 as opposed to 840 at the end of 2004 and 974 at the end of 2003. An improvement in the length of proceedings is also observed, which was also the case in 2004. The length of time for sending out preliminary rulings also decreased and stands at 20.4 months as opposed to 23.5 months in 2004 and 25.5 months in 2003. As for direct appeals and more general appeals, the average length of dealing with them remained at around 21 months compared to 24.7 months for direct appeals and 28.7 months for general appeals in 2003. In an effort to speed up proceedings in certain cases, the Court often made a ruling on cases without the conclusions of the advocate General when the case did not raise any question of new laws: 35% of decisions reached in 2005 were made without the conclusions of the Advocate General, as opposed to 30% in 2004.
A very marked increase in the number of cases closed was observed at the Court of First Instance. In 2005, the Court closed 610 cases as opposed to 361 in 2004 but 117 cases were concluded, due to the transfer of cases from European civil servants to the new European Union Civil Service Court. Registered cases fell: 469 compared to 536 in 2004. But the 2004 figure should be taken into account because two years ago around twenty cases were sent by the Court to the Court of First Instance due to the transfer of competencies, allowing for the Court of First Instance to rule on direct appeals lodged by Member States. The number of cases registered this year has in fact returned to a level comparable to that for 2003 (466). In the context of cases pending, an increase in 2005 was observed, rising to 1033, which represents a decrease of 141, 12% fewer than the previous year.
The average time for the proceedings in a case, however, increased in 2005: 25.6 months as opposed to 22.6 in 2004. The Court explained this rise by the legal and factual complexities of several weighty cases closed by the Court of First Instance in 2005.