COURT OF JUSTICE: CHANGE TO RULES OF PROCEDURE TO TAKE EFFECT ON 1 FEBRUARY.

• Position: Brief Article

The proposal to amend the Court of Justice's rules of procedure under Article 245 of the Treaty was tabled by the President, Gil Carlos Rodriguez Iglesias, in July 1999. The Council signalled its agreement in April 2000. The idea is to ensure that for certain emergency appeals the Court can render a decision within a short period on the basis of an accelerated procedure. The waiting time will be shortened so as to cut the length of procedures involving direct appeals. The use of fax for sending documents will be allowed and help shorten the provisions as to the period of grace based on considerations of distance.The proposed amendments to the rules of procedure for the CFI were tabled in February 2000 by the President, Bo Vesterdorf, under Article 225 of the Treaty and waved through by the Council in November. The amendments mainly involve a) creating an accelerated procedure for cases at the end of which provisional measures adopted may not or are not sufficient to provide a solution injunction, b) scope for the Court to drop the second change to the statement of case so as to focus on the main verbal argument and during the hearing, c) shortening the six-week waiting period, d) acknowledgement of fax and e-mail facilities as legitimate means of forwarding documents, plus a grace period, based on considerations of distance, for forwarding documents to the Court, set at 10 days. The final amendment applies to cases relating to a refusal for access to documents: the CFI may now decide on the availability of the document to the public, without any longer notifying it to the parties beforehand.The other proposal for changes to the CFI did not muster the unanimous support of the Council of Ministers. This entails relieving...