1. Appeals – Grounds – Inadequate or contradictory grounds – Admissibility – Scope of the obligation to state reasons
(Art. 225 EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 58, first para.)
2. Officials – Reimbursement of expenses – Seconded national experts – Daily subsistence allowance
(Art. 3(2) EC)
3. Procedure – Application initiating proceedings – Formal requirements – Identification of the subject-matter of the dispute – Brief summary of the pleas in law on which the application is based
(Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 44(1)(c))
1. The question whether the grounds of a judgment of the General Court are contradictory or inadequate is a question of law which is amenable, as such, to review on appeal.
In the context of an appeal, the purpose of review by the Court of Justice is, inter alia, to consider whether the General Court responded to the requisite legal standard to all the arguments raised by the appellant.
However, the requirement that the General Court give reasons for its decisions cannot be interpreted as meaning that it is obliged to respond in detail to every single argument advanced by the appellant, particularly if the argument is not sufficiently clear and precise.
(see paras 39-41)
2. The principle of equal treatment or non-discrimination requires comparable situations not to be treated differently and different situations not to be treated in the same way unless such treatment is objectively justified.
A decision of the General Court did not discriminate against married persons compared with single persons in a de facto union by validating marital status as one of the correct and appropriate criteria for the purposes of determining the amount of the daily allowance to be received, and by holding that, when the request for secondment was made, an appellant had not been discriminated against compared with a single national expert on secondment, inasmuch as her legal status as a married woman was different from that of a single person.
Setting the conditions for the payment of the allowances to national experts on secondment involves the exercise of discretion on the part of the Commission. Similarly, the principle of non-discrimination or equal treatment would be disregarded only if Article 20(3)(b) of the Commission Decision of 30 April 2002 laying down the rules applicable to national experts on secondment entailed a difference of treatment which was arbitrary or manifestly inappropriate in relation to the purpose of that provision. In that connection, the allowance is paid by the Commission in order to make up for the disadvantages and costs incurred by a national expert on secondment as a result of being away from his place of residence. Article 20(3)(b) of the abovementioned decision is based on a presumption that a seconded national expert faces fewer disadvantages when, at the time the secondment is requested, his spouse resides at the place of secondment.
Although de facto unions and legally recognised unions, such as marriage, may display similarities in certain respects, those similarities do not necessarily mean that those two types of union must be treated in the same way.
Although in borderline cases fortuitous problems must arise from the introduction of any general and abstract system of rules, there are no grounds for taking exception to the fact that the legislature has resorted to categorisation, provided that it is not in essence discriminatory having regard to the objective which it pursues. The same conclusion applies a fortiori where those borderline cases give rise to fortuitous advantages.
(see paras 70-73, 75, 78, 81)
3. The General Court is obliged to reject as inadmissible a head of claim in an application brought before it if the essential matters of law and of fact on which the head of claim is based are not indicated coherently and intelligibly in the application itself, and the failure to state such matters in the application cannot be compensated for by putting them forward at the hearing.
(see para. 104)