EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE: JUDGES GET THROUGH MORE CASES DESPITE PROCEDURAL BOTTLENECKS.

The increase in cases brought before and dealt with by the ECJ and CFI last year is to be welcomed, although the bottleneck of pending cases continues to slow proceedings down. Most cases in the ECJ last over two and a quarter years. Court of First Instance proceedings tend to take either less than one year or over two and a third years on average. The two Courts have tried to reduce the length of proceedings but to no avail. Moreover, the new cases concerning the Community trade mark and other intellectual property rights, the third stage of Economic and Monetary Union which began earlier this year and the new procedures in the Amsterdam Treaty will generate many more cases.The Courts have made significant judicial developments in various areas. Some of the more arresting cases include the much-publicised Silhouette trade mark case in which the ECJ ruled that a trade mark owner can stop parallel imports from countries outside the EEA, as well as the...