Luxembourg, 26/06/2006 (Agence Europe) - The judges at the European Court of First Instance are currently deliberating in the André Bonnet affair after the name of the French magistrate of the administrative court of Marseilles who brought action against the European Court of Justice for misuse of employer powers. André Bonnet claims damages from the Court which, he believes, did not appoint him to the post of “lecteur d'arrêts” in 2004 - although he had been chosen following selection procedure - due to his extra-professional activities and his political convictions (see EUROPE 8867).
The five lecteurs d'arrêts are legal secretaries at the Court president's cabinet. All French-speaking, they are responsible for the re-reading and finalisation of rulings published in French, the working language of the Court, which are then translated into all the official EU languages.
The hearing of the parties has been held and the Court of First Instance is currently deliberating on the case. The own-initiative judge is British Judge Nicholas Forwood.
The Court considers that the trust surrounding the appointment of legal secretaries (see EUROPE 9126) had been broken when it learnt of Mr Bonnet's links with the National Republican Movement (MNR) under Bruno Maigret (a breakaway movement of Jean-Marie Le Pen's National Front), as well as his responsibilities within the “Promouvoir” association that André Bonnet presents as an association to combat pornography and paedophilia. The French magistrate retorted that he was no longer a member of the MNR at the time of applying for the post and that his associative responsibilities were purely in the private sphere.
André Bonnet noted a letter from the Court in February 2004 addressed to the secretary general of the French State Council calling for the French magistrate to be made rapidly available as he had been chosen for the post. The Court defended its action saying that the administrative authority empowered to conclude the contracts of law clerks had never taken a decision and that there had been nothing in writing to say that Mr Bonnet was to be appointed.
André Bonnet asserted that the post of lecteur d'arrêts is purely a technical post and could not be considered as intuitu personae, depending upon the personality of the person. The Court explained that lecteurs d'arrêts may be chosen for their technical ability but also, as for legal secretaries, depending on the link of trust with the judges.
André Bonnet is claiming €100,000 in compensation for moral prejudice and €160,000 corresponding to the difference between the remuneration that he would have received as a lecteur d'arrêt in 2004 and his current remuneration as a French magistrate over the 32-month period from 2004 to 6 October 2006, the date when the term of office of the current president, Vassilios Skouris, ends. The European Court of Justice considers the alleged prejudice claimed by André Bonnet lies in the fact that he kept quiet about his extra-professional activities entailing exposure to his country's public life, and not in an act of the Court.
The lecteurs d'arrêts, like legal secretaries, are directly placed in the remuneration category of European officials depending on their age, irrespective of any other criteria (see the above-mentioned EUROPE).