Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Procedure – Intervention – Conditions governing admissibility

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Arts 40, second para., and 53, first para.)

2. Procedure – Intervention – Persons having an interest

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 40, second para.)

Summary

1. Under the second paragraph of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which applies to proceedings before the Court of First Instance by virtue of the first paragraph of Article 53 of the Statute, any person establishing an interest in the result of a case, save in cases between Member States, between Community institutions or between Member States and Community institutions, shall have the right to intervene in that case.

An interest in the result of the case for the purposes of Article 40 of the Statute of the Court of Justice means a direct, present interest in the grant of the particular form of order sought that the application to intervene is designed to support, and not an interest in relation to the pleas or arguments raised. The word ‘result’ is to be understood as referring to the operative part of the final judgment which the parties ask the Court to deliver. It is necessary, in particular, to ascertain whether the intervener is directly affected by the contested measure and whether his interest in the result of the case is established. A distinction should moreover be drawn between prospective interveners establishing a direct interest in the ruling on the specific measure whose annulment is sought and those who can establish only an indirect interest in the result of the case by reason of similarities between their situation and that of one of the parties.

(see paras 4, 15)

2. Intervention is permissible by representative associations whose object is to protect their members in cases raising questions of principle liable to affect those members.

(see para. 6)