13 Rules of procedure of the General
Court
| Committee's assessment
| Legally important |
| Committee's decision | Cleared from scrutiny
|
| Document details | Draft Rules of Procedure of the General Court
|
| Legal base | Articles 254 TFEU; QMV except for language provisions which require unanimity
|
| Department
Document numbers
| Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(35911), 7795/14, —
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Summary and Committee's conclusions
13.1 The General Court (previously known as the Court of First
Instance) was established in 1989 as the second tier court below
the Court of Justice. It now deals with a wide range of cases:
· Direct
actions brought by Member States or individuals to seek the annulment
of EU actions, a declaration that the EU has unlawfully failed
to act, or damages;
· Actions
for annulment of the decisions of the Boards of Appeal of the
Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and
Designs) (OHIM) and of the Community Plant Variety Office (CPVO);
· Appeals
against decisions of the Civil Service Tribunal; and
· Miscellaneous
minor and consequential matters including applications for interim
measures.
13.2 This Court is currently experiencing severe
difficulties in handling its caseload, exacerbated by the fact
that the Council has been unable to agree to a Court of Justice
proposal to increase its number of judges by 12.
13.3 As outlined in more detail in our Report of
14 May 2014, these draft Rules of Procedure are intended to (a)
consolidate, clarify, simplify and restructure the existing rules,
(b) ensure consistency with the redrafted rules of the Court of
Justice, (c) facilitate the more efficient operation of the Court,
and (d) deal with the handling of confidential information, particularly
confidential security sensitive material submitted to the Court
to justify restrictive measures, for which there is no current
procedure (Article 105).
13.4 The remaining outstanding issue is Article 105.
The Minister for Europe (Mr David Lidington) now indicates that
there is qualified majority support for a draft suggested by the
Court and outlines in detail how this would work. It does not
meet UK requirements in two respects: the rules would not enable
confidential information to be withdrawn at any time; nor do they
provide for judgments to be checked for accidental disclosure
of sensitive information before being issued. In the light of
this, the Minister intends to abstain when this matter comes to
a vote in the Council and to lodge a statement that the absence
of these safeguards will limit the types of information that the
UK will be able to submit to the Court and seeking a review of
the mechanism in the light of practical experience.
13.5 We are grateful for the further information
provided by the Minister. In general this substantial revision
of the draft Rules of the General Court will improve its transparency
and efficiency. Whilst Article 105 will provide a system for handling
confidential information, hitherto totally lacking, we note that
it falls short of the Government's objectives and may need further
revision in the light of practical experience, particularly in
handling cases involving restrictive measures.
13.6 Given that the draft Rules are now likely
to command a qualified majority and the Government propose to
abstain we now clear this document from scrutiny.
Full details of
the documents: Draft Rules of Procedure
of the General Court:
(35911), 7795/14, —.
The Minister's letter of 5 January 2015
13.7 The Minister updates the Committee with progress
on this negotiation:
"On 4 December the Court submitted a revised
draft which my officials shared with the Committee. This was acceptable
to all other Member States but fell short of UK expectations.
Despite our objections, the Presidency concluded that a qualified
majority existed and that the revised Rules of Procedure would
be adopted by the Council in early 2015. The precise date has
yet to be finalised and we have asked the Latvian Presidency to
postpone it until we complete Parliamentary scrutiny. We have
also made clear that the UK will abstain when this is adopted
and will make a national statement clarifying our position."
13.8 With regard to confidential material the Minister
indicates that special measures enabling the Court to consider
evidence not made available to the other party are likely to be
called upon in only a limited number of cases, since it is often
possible to sufficiently justify restrictive measures using non-confidential
information.
13.9 The Minister further indicates that other Member
States accepted the Court's position that such special measures
needed to be proportionate and did not push for an equivalent
to the UK Special Advocate provisions.
13.10 He summarises how the proposed Article 105
will work:
· The
party who does not have access to the material will at all times
know that an application to treat information as confidential
has been made by the other party, and will have sight of the non-confidential
reasons cited for the use of a closed procedure;
· The
Court will decide where material is relevant for the purposes
of its decision and also whether that material is confidential
for the purposes of the case;
· If material
is relevant and confidential, the Court will order what procedures
need to adopted, such as the production of a non-confidential
summary to be disclosed to the other party. At that stage, the
party who has produced the evidence can withdraw it, but Article
105 makes it clear that in those circumstances, any material which
is withdrawn will not be taken into account in determining the
case; and
· Only
in narrow circumstances can the Court take into account material
which is not disclosed to the other party. It will, however, always
take into account, in its assessment of that material, that it
has not been disclosed to the other party.
13.11 The Government's objections to this procedure
and how it intends to deal with the position are explained as
follows:
"As regards the safeguards for owners of
confidential information, the situation remains as set out in
my previous letter. The Court's final draft of Article 105 would
not enable us to withdraw confidential material at any stage of
the proceedings and does not make provision for security checking
of judgments and orders to prevent accidental disclosure of information.
These have been key elements of our equivalent domestic regime.
While we do not rule out the possibility of using Article 105,
the absence of these safeguards will limit the types of information
we are able to submit and will make that clear in our national
statement. We will also suggest that the Council review the mechanism
in due course in light of practical experience."
Previous Committee Reports
Twenty-fifth Report HC 219-xxiv (2014-15) chapter
5 (10 December 2014), Fiftieth Report HC 83-xlv (2013-14), chapter
3 (14 May 2014); and see (32675) 8787/11: Forty-seventh Report
HC 428-xlii (2010-12), chapter 12 (23 November 2011), Thirty-fourth
Report HC 428-xxx (2010-12), chapter 9 (22 June 2011).
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