Activities of Angelika NIEBLER related to 2022/0906(COD)
Shadow reports (1)
REPORT on the draft regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union
Amendments (17)
Amendment 20 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 a (new)
Citation 7 a (new)
– Welcomes the Request submitted by the Court of Justice pursuant to the second paragraph of Article 281 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, with a view to amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, in order to allow for an efficient legal system, for jurisdiction of the highest quality and for the Court of Justice to efficiently carry out its tasks according to Art. 19(1) of the Treaty on the European Union; recognises the importance of the rulings of the European Court of Justice, as highest judicial body of the EU, in the process of EU integration;
Amendment 21 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 b (new)
Citation 7 b (new)
– Whereas the Request submitted by the Court of Justice to amend Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union directly concerns court jurisdiction and the right to a lawful judge; whereas the right to a lawful judge is one of the fundamental rights of EU citizens according to Art. 47(2) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union which is part of primary law of the European Union, as it states that everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing within a reasonable time by an independent and impartial tribunal previously established by law;
Amendment 22 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 c (new)
Citation 7 c (new)
– Questions whether the equal treatment of all preliminary ruling procedures can be ensured, given there are no independent advocates general at Court level, some of whom can work in their native language; notes how according to the proposal, one judge would be able to perform the function of advocate general, and otherwise acts as a judge; stresses that this is not remotely comparable to the functioning of advocates general as they exist at the Court of Justice;
Amendment 23 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 d (new)
Citation 7 d (new)
– Calls on the Court of Justice to regularly assess the following aspects and present the results in a report at least every two years: - how the Court of Justice and the General Court have become and can further become more transparent vis-à-vis EU citizens and policymakers, considering their role as driving forces in the field of European integration, also taking into account the efforts of other EU institutions, as all documents of the European Parliament, Council and Commission are being made accessible to the public with only few exceptions pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents; - whether the Court's specialisation resulting from the proposed reform is strengthening the judicial system in the EU and the quality of jurisdiction, especially as regards achieving the objective of a coherent jurisdiction within the EU; - how the Court of Justice of the European Union as leading EU body has implemented and can further implement the EU objectives of sustainability and digitalisation in its working processes and the use of resources; - whether more efficient court proceedings and higher quality of rulings and the Court’s case-law could be achieved by strengthening the requirements for the admissibility of a request for a preliminary ruling based on substantive and formal criteria, including whether the facts of the case are clarified, the national legal framework is presented clearly and without gaps, the question relates to a specific and explicitly mentioned provision of EU law that is to be interpreted, this provision is relevant to the resolution of the main proceedings, the possible interpretations would lead to different results in the main proceedings, the necessity for a referral is the opinion of the referring court itself and not only held by one of the parties, the referring court has provided sufficient justification for the need of interpretation of EU law.
Amendment 24 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 e (new)
Citation 7 e (new)
– Points out that gender equality is one of the key principles of the European Union; underlines that the principle of gender equality pursuant to Art. 23 of the Charta of Fundamental Rights of the European Union should be upheld when appointing the members of the Court of Justice and General Court;
Amendment 25 #
Draft legislative resolution
Citation 7 f (new)
Citation 7 f (new)
– Recalls that a structured dialogue between the EU institutions is already good practice; calls on the European Court of Justice to introduce a structured dialogue with the European Parliament taking place at least once a year in order to foster the inter-institutional exchange, in particular reflecting on how the reform of the Statute of the European Court of Justice is being implemented and on how to further improve the judicial system of the European Union, in particular preliminary ruling;
Amendment 26 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 1
Recital 1
(1) At the invitation of the European Parliament and the Council of 16 December 2015,12 on 14 December 2017 the Court of Justice submitted to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission a report on possible changes to the distribution of jurisdiction to receive preliminary rulings under Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. While, in that report, the Court of Justice took the view that there was no need, at that time, to propose changes as regards the manner of dealing with requests for preliminary rulings under Article 267, it nevertheless pointed out, in that same report, that a subsequent transfer of jurisdiction to the General Court to give preliminary rulings in certain specific areas could not be ruled out if the number and complexity of requests for a preliminary ruling submitted to the Court of Justice were to be such that the proper administration of justice required it. Furthermore, such a transfer is in line with the intentions of the authors of the Treaty of Nice, who sought to strengthen the efficiency of the judicial system of the Union by providing for the possibility of the General Court being involved in dealing with those requests. _________________ 12 See Article 3(2) of Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2422 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union (OJ L 341, 24.12.2015, p. 14).
Amendment 27 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 2
Recital 2
(2) The statistics of the Court of Justice highlight the fact that both the number of pending preliminary ruling cases and the average duration to deal with those cases are increasing. As preliminary rulings must be dealt with expeditiously in order to enable national courts to guarantee individuals respect for the right to an effective remedy, the current situation is not sustainable. That situation is attributable not only to the high number of requests for a preliminary ruling of which the Court of Justice is seised each year, but also to the great complexity and particularly sensitive nature of a growing number of questions put to that court. In order to guarantee the quality of the decisions of the Court of Justice and to allow the Court of Justice to continue to fulfil its mission, it is necessary, in the interests of the proper administration of justice, to make use of the possibility provided for in the first subparagraph of Article 256(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and to transfer to the General Court jurisdiction to hear and determine questions referred for a preliminary ruling under Article 267 of that Treaty, in specific areas laid down by the Statute.
Amendment 31 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 3
Recital 3
(3) The General CourtAs a result of the doubling of the number of its currently in a position to be able to deal with the increase Judges, which should be composed of an equal number of male and female judges in line workload that will follow from that transfer of jurisdictith art. 23 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, as a resultnd art. 8 of the Treaty ofn the doublFunctioning of the number of its JudgesEuropean Union, and the measures taken in the context of the reform of the judicial framework of the Union resulting from Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2422 of the European Parliament and of the Council.13, the General Court should be able to swiftly and adequately deal with the increase in workload that will follow from that transfer of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, since the workload of the General Court is closely related to developments in the Union’s activity, care should be taken to ensure that the General Court remains capable of fully exercising its powers of review in respect of the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union, if necessary by means of increasing the number of its staff. _________________ 13 Regulation (EU, Euratom) 2015/2422 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 amending Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union (OJ L 341, 24.12.2015, p. 14).
Amendment 33 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 4
Recital 4
(4) For reasons of legal certainty, the areas in which jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings is conferred on the General Court must be clearly defined and sufficiently separable from other areas. Furthermore, those areas must have given rise to a substantial body of case-law of the Court of Justice which is capable of guiding the General Court in the exercise of its jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings. It is essential to guarantee that questions relating to primary law, public international law, general principles of law or the Charter of Fundamental Rights are exclusively dealt with by the Court of Justice.
Amendment 34 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 5
Recital 5
Amendment 35 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 8
Recital 8
(8) Having regard to the substantive criterion applicable to the distribution between the Court of Justice and the General Court of jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings, it is necessary, for reasons of legal certainty and expedition, for the referring courts not themselves to decide the question as to which of the Courts of the Union has jurisdiction to hear and determine a request for a preliminary ruling. Every request for a preliminary ruling must therefore be submitted to a single court, namely the Court of Justice, which will determine, in accordance with detailed rules to be set out in its Rules of Procedure, whether the request falls exclusively within one or several specific defined areas laid down in the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union and, accordingly, whether that request must be dealt with by the General Court. As the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice are thereby an essential element of this current reform, the European Parliament should be consulted on the amended Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice that relate to the adaptations in relation to this reform. The Court of Justice will continue to have jurisdiction to adjudicate on requests for a preliminary ruling that, notwithstanding that they may be connected to those specific areas, also concern other areas, since the first subparagraph of Article 256(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union does not provide any possibility of transferring to the General Court jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings in areas other than the specific areas.
Amendment 39 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 8 a (new)
Recital 8 a (new)
(8a) In order to ensure compliance with the principle of legality, the provisions of the Statute should clearly state that the Court will retain jurisdiction pursuant to the first subparagraph of Article 256(3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union where the request for a preliminary ruling raises independent questions of interpretation of primary law public international law, general principles of law or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, having regard to their horizontal nature, despite the legal framework of the case in the main proceedings falling within one or more of the specific areas referred to in Article 50b(1) of the Statute.
Amendment 49 #
Draft Regulation
Recital 14 a (new)
Recital 14 a (new)
(14a) The implementation of this reform, and reflections on how to further improve the judicial system of the EU, in particular preliminary ruling, should be evaluated by the European Parliament together with the European Court of Justice in the form of a structured dialogue at least once a year. The European Court of Justice should assess the functioning of its preliminary ruling in the light of the reform by providing a report upon completion of the reform to the European Commission, European Parliament and Council.
Amendment 59 #
Draft Regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1
Article 2 – paragraph 1
Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union
Article 50 b – paragraph 2 a (new)
Article 50 b – paragraph 2 a (new)
2a. When a request for a preliminary ruling does not come exclusively within one or several of the specific areas to which paragraph 1 refers, such as in cases where it raises separate questions relating to interpretation of primary law, public international law, general principles of law or the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, the Court of Justice shall remain responsible.
Amendment 61 #
Draft Regulation
Article 2 – paragraph 1
Article 2 – paragraph 1
Protocol No 3 on the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union
Article 50 b – paragraph 2 b (new)
Article 50 b – paragraph 2 b (new)
2b. In cases where the transmission of the request for a preliminary ruling to the General Court is in question, a formation of 5 judges composed of judges of the Court of Justice and of the General Court (the "Body of Competence"), shall examine the request and shall issue a justified, binding decision regarding the transmission of the request for a preliminary ruling to the General Court. The Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice should clarify the details of the "Body of Competence".
Amendment 69 #
Draft Regulation
Article 4 a (new)
Article 4 a (new)
Article 4a No later than [three years after the entry into force of this amending Regulation], the Court shall present a report to the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission on the implementation of this reform.