Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Procedure - Introduction of new pleas in law in the course of proceedings - Conditions - New plea - Definition

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 44(1)(c) and 48(2))

2. Council - Commission - Public right of access to documents from those institutions - Decisions 93/731 and 94/90 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Partial access to data not covered by the exceptions - Limits

(Council Decision 93/731, Art. 4(1); Commission Decision 94/90)

3. Council - Commission - Public right of access to documents from those institutions - Decisions 93/731 and 94/90 - Exceptions to the principle of access to documents - Obligation to examine a request for access in relation to each of the documents requested - Scope - Limits

(Council Decision 93/731, Art. 4(1); Commission Decision 94/90)

4. Acts of the institutions - Statement of reasons - Obligation - Scope - Decisions refusing public access to the Council's and the Commission's documents

(Art. 253 EC; Council Decision 93/731, Art. 4(1); Commission Decision 94/90)

Summary

1. It is clear from the provisions of Articles 44(1)(c) and 48(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, taken together, that the application initiating proceedings must indicate the subject-matter of the dispute and set out in summary form the pleas raised, and that no fresh issue may be raised in the course of proceedings unless it is based on matters of law or of fact which come to light in the course of the procedure. However, a submission which expands upon a plea made earlier, directly or by implication, in the originating application, and which bears a close relationship to that earlier plea, must be held to be admissible.

( see para. 32 )

2. Whilst the Council and the Commission are required to consider whether access ought to be granted to information not covered by the exceptions to the principle of access to documents, the principle of sound administration requires that the duty to grant partial access should not result in an administrative burden which is disproportionate to the applicant's interest in obtaining that information. In light of this, the Council and the Commission are in any event entitled to refuse partial access in cases where examination of the documents in question shows that partial access would be meaningless because the parts of the documents that could be disclosed would be of no use to the applicant.

( see para. 69 )

3. While it is true that the Council and the Commission are not entitled to give a blanket refusal to access to documents sought by an interested party, they are required, before deciding an application for access to documents, to examine, in the case of each document requested, whether, in the light of the information available to them, disclosure is likely to undermine a protected public interest. However, that obligation does not mean that the institutions are obliged in all cases to furnish, in respect of each document, imperative reasons in order to justify the application of the public interest exception, and thereby risk jeopardising the essential function of the exception in question. It might be impossible, in practical terms, to give reasons justifying the need for confidentiality in respect of each individual document without disclosing the content of the document and, thereby, depriving the exception of its very purpose.

( see para. 87 )

4. The duty to state reasons has the purpose, on the one hand, of permitting interested parties to know the reasons for the adoption of measures so that they can protect their own interests and, on the other hand, of enabling the Community judicature to exercise its jurisdiction to review the validity of the decision. Moreover, the statement of reasons must show clearly and unequivocally the reasoning of the Community authority which adopted the contested measure.

As regards the decisions of the Commission and the Council refusing access to certain documents on the basis of the exception concerning the protection of the public interest in the field of international relations provided for in Article 4(1) of Decision 93/731 on public access to Council documents and by Decision 94/90 on public access to Commission documents, those institutions are required to indicate, at the very least by reference to categories of documents, the reasons for which they consider that the documents detailed in the requests they receive fall within the scope of that exception, stating in what way disclosure of the documents might undermine that interest, and in so doing to comply with the general requirements regarding statements of reasons.

( see paras 91-92, 94 )