COURT OF JUSTICE : APPOINTING ADDITIONAL JUDGES: AN EQUATION WITH NO SOLUTION?

Increasing the number of judges at the EU General Court is proving to be a very tricky if not impossible exercise, since their number does not correspond to the number of member states.

The president of the EU Court of Justice called, in March 2011, for a reform of the court's statutes, with the aim of appointing another 12 judges to the General Court to deal with the growing workload. The court currently has 27 judges, one per member state, so adding 12 judges means making a choice among the different nationalities, particularly in today's context of austerity measures. The Council does not wish to increase this number further due to the costs this would entail (according to the EP's Committee on Budgets, each additional judge appointed leads to a cost of nearly 1 million per year).

On a proposal from the European Parliament (under co-decision), to keep from holding up the entire dossier, this request was separated from the other changes to the court's statute, less sensitive politically, contained in the draft regulation. The other modifications were adopted and entered into force in November 2012, but the question of the additional judges is still open.

The Cyprus EU Presidency nevetheless spared no effort to resolve the matter, working out ever more elaborate solutions in the face of continuing rejections as it tried to break the stalemate on the judges' nationality, a decision that requires the unanimity of member states.

Many proposals have been rejected so far: switching from a rotation based on full equality to one based on member state size or even a chance' rotation, with lots drawn to determine which member state would be authorised to appoint a judge. In the latest compromise to date, proposed on 11 December 2012, the Cyprus Presidency suggested the use of two parallel rotation systems (the six largest member states would appoint four judges for two consecutive mandates and the other states would appoint five for a single mandate) and a reduction in the number of judges to nine or even six. Its effort was in vain, though. The smallest member states insist on...