Keywords
Summary

Keywords

1. Appeal — Pleas in law — Insufficient statement of reasons — Application as regards orders on applications for interim measures

2. Applications for interim measures — Suspension of operation of a measure — Conditions governing admissibility — Main action prima facie admissible — Obligation on the applicant to adduce evidence — Evidence to be appraised by the Court of First Instance — Findings of fact — Whether these may be reviewed in the course of an appeal — Not possible — (Rules of Procedure of the Court, Art. 83(2))

3. Officials — Actions — Act adversely affecting an official — Preparatory act — Opening and conduct of an internal investigation — Inadmissible — Damage to the rights of the defence — Not relevant — (Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

Summary

1. The judge of the Court of First Instance hearing an application cannot be required to reply explicitly to all the points of fact and law raised in the course of the interlocutory proceedings. It is sufficient that the reasons given validly justify his order in the light of the circumstances of the case and enable the Court of Justice to exercise its powers of review.

see para. 29

2. In interlocutory proceedings, the applicant must prove the existence of certain facts to support the prima facie conclusion that the main action to which his application for interim measures is an adjunct is admissible, in order to prevent him, by means of interim measures, obtaining inter alia suspension of operation of measures which the Court might subsequently, if the main action were declared inadmissible, refuse to annul. Such examination of the admissibility of the action is, in that context, necessarily summary because the proceedings for interim relief are by nature urgent, and the question of admissibility can be considered only on the basis of the facts adduced by the applicant, since the decision of the judge hearing an application for interim relief does not prejudge the decision to be made by the Court of First Instance on hearing the main action. The finding of the Court of First Instance that the applicant has not provided the necessary evidence to support his allegations is a finding of fact which comes within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Court of First Instance and cannot be called into question in the context of an appeal, unless the Court distorts the evidence presented to it, or refuses to allow the applicant the benefit of the qualification of the rule placing the burden of proof on him, which is required in certain specific circumstances.

see paras 45-49

3. As regards staff cases, acts preparatory to a decision do not adversely affect the applicant and therefore can only be contested incidentally in an appeal against measures capable of being annulled. Although some purely preparatory measures may adversely affect an official inasmuch as they may influence the content of a subsequent challengeable act, those measures cannot be the subject of a separate action and must be challenged in support of an action brought against that act.

In that regard the preparatory measures which are constituted by the opening and conducting of an internal investigation may not be the subject of a separate action, different from that which the party concerned is entitled to bring against the authority's final decision. Indeed, neither the existence, even if established, of infringements of the rights of the defence nor the fact that internal investigations are conducted show in themselves that a measure having an adverse effect, that is to say a measure open to appeal, has been adopted.

see paras 62, 65