This document is an excerpt from the EUR-Lex website
Document 61994CJ0199
Summary of the Judgment
Summary of the Judgment
1 Procedure - Revision of a judgment - Application concerning an order dismissing an appeal as clearly unfounded - Whether admissible
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 41, first para.; Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 119)
2 Procedure - Revision of a judgment - Conditions of admissibility of the application - New fact - Facts known before delivery of the contested judgment or devoid of relevance - Inadmissible
(EC Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 41, first para.)
3 According to the first paragraph of Article 41 of the EC Statute of the Court of Justice, the parties may apply to the Court for revision of a judgment on discovery of a new and decisive factor. Even though that provision does not expressly provide that an order may also be the subject of an application for revision, an application for revision may be made in respect of such a ruling where it dismissed an appeal as clearly unfounded, pursuant to Article 119 of the Rules of Procedure, and where it therefore produces the same effects as would a judgment dismissing the appeal as unfounded.
4 The revision of a judgment, within the meaning of the first paragraph of Article 41 of the Statute of the Court of Justice, is not an appeal procedure but an exceptional review procedure that allows the authority of res judicata attaching to a final judgment to be called in question on the basis of the findings of fact relied upon by the court. Revision presupposes the discovery of elements of a factual nature which existed prior to the judgment and which were unknown at that time to the court which delivered it as well as to the party applying for revision and which, had the court been able to take them into consideration, could have led it to a different determination of the proceedings.
Accordingly, an application for revision is inadmissible where it relies only on procedural rules of which the Court is well aware and matters relating to the substance of the case, when the Court, in its order forming the subject-matter of the application for revision, dealt only with matters concerning the admissibility of the action or with facts of no relevance whatever with regard to that order.