COURT OF JUSTICE: ANNUAL REPORT 2000 REFLECTS A BUSY YEAR.

The courts were busy in 2000: 870 cases were dealt with by the Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance. The Court of Justice brought 526 cases to a close (an increase of 33.16% compared with 1999), while 503 new cases were lodged, around the average for the past years as litigation before the two Courts continues to grow. There was a slight fall in the number of pending cases from 896 to 873, that is to say a reduction of 2.57%. The length of proceedings was unchanged overall: on average, 21 months for references for a preliminary ruling (questions submitted by national courts), 24 months for direct actions and 19 months for appeals. Regarding the Court of First Instance, 344 cases were disposed of as against 398 new cases lodged. The average duration of proceedings remained at 27 months, but was reduced to 15 months for staff cases.--In the context of the substantial renewal of membership of the Court of Justice on 7 October, the term of office of five Judges was renewed for six years (Judges La Pergola, Edward, Puissochet, Jann and Colneric), while the Court welcomed three new Judges (Judges von Bahr, Cunha Rodrigues and Timmermans). The term of office of Advocate-General Leger was renewed and three new Advocates General were appointed (Advocates General Tizzano, Geelhoed and Stix-Hackl). In addition, the President of the Court of Justice, Gil Carlos Rodr[inverted exclamation mark]guez Iglesias, was re-elected by his peers for a third term.--The resources granted under the 2001 Budget should enable it, first, to continue to make judgements available in all the languages on the actual day of delivery and, second, to reduce the backlog of texts to be translated which seriously affects the period within which cases are dealt. Thirty lawyer-linguist posts were made available to the institution by the 2000 Budget, while the 2001 budget is to enable the creation of 37 new lawyer-linguist jobs in the translation service.New Rules of Procedure.The Court of Justice and the Court of First Instance proposed amendments of their Rules of Procedure to the Council in order to introduce new mechanisms such as accelerated and simplified procedures for disposing of cases. These amendments entered into force on 1 July 2000 and 1 February 2001 (see European Report No 2562 for further details).Regarding requests for preliminary rulings, the following new provisions are to be noted:- A simplified procedure allows the Court of Justice to give its...