Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Appeals - Grounds - Challenge to grounds of a judgment which have no effect on the operative part of the judgment - Inoperative plea

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 49(1))

2. Appeals - Grounds - Plea challenging the decision of the Court of First Instance on costs - Inadmissible where all other pleas rejected

(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 51(2))

Summary

1. In an appeal against a judgment of the Court of First Instance, a plea directed against certain grounds of the judgment which have no effect on its operative part is inoperative and must be rejected.

Thus, where the grounds of a judgment of the Court of First Instance explain that an action for failure to act has ceased to have any purpose because the institution has expressed its position after proceedings were commenced and where the grounds, by themselves, provide a sufficient legal basis for the Court's decision that there is no need to give judgment, a plea in an appeal directed against grounds which deal with the admissibility of the action for failure to act is inoperative and must be dismissed. Such grounds have no effect on the operative part of the judgment under appeal, it being clear from the case-law of the Court of Justice that, where the Court decides that there is no need to give judgment in an action which has ceased to have any purpose, it is not necessary for it to examine the admissibility of that action.

( see paras 26-29 )

2. Where all the other pleas put forward in an appeal have been rejected, any plea challenging the decision of the Court of First Instance on costs must be rejected as inadmissible by virtue of the second paragraph of Article 51 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, which provides that no appeal shall lie regarding only the amount of the costs or the party ordered to pay them.

( see para. 31 )