Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Freedom to provide services - Lawyers - Directive 77/249 - Implementation - Persons covered - Exclusion of nationals practising as lawyers in another Member State - Not permissible - Obligation to work in conjunction with a local lawyer - Scope - Procedures - Rule applicable to local lawyers concerning the territorial exclusivity of the right to plead - Not applicable to a lawyer providing services

(EEC Treaty, Arts 59 and 60; Council Directive 77/249)

Summary

The French Republic has failed to fulfil its obligations under Articles 59 and 60 of the Treaty and Directive 77/249 to facilitate the effective exercise by lawyers of freedom to provide services by:

(i) depriving French nationals who practise as lawyers in a Member State other than the French Republic of the benefit of the provisions on freedom for lawyers to provide services in France;

(ii) requiring a lawyer providing services to work in conjunction with a lawyer who is a member of a French Bar when acting before authorities or bodies which have no judicial function and when acting in situations where French law does not make the assistance of a lawyer compulsory; and

(iii) requiring a lawyer providing services who appears before a Tribunal de Grande Instance (Regional Court), in civil cases where it is compulsory to be represented by a lawyer, to retain a lawyer who is a member of the Bar of that court or is authorized to plead before it in order to plead or carry out the procedural formalities.