2The Court of First Instance held:1 In the wake, inter alia, of the Final Act of the Treaty on European Union signed at Maastricht on 7 February 1992 which contains a Declaration (No 17) on the right of access to information, and of several European Council meetings at which the commitment to a more open Community was reaffirmed (see, in that connection, Case T-105/95 WWF UK v Commission [1997] ECR II-313, paragraphs 1 to 3), the Commission and the Council, on 6 December 1993, adopted a Code of Conduct concerning public access to Council and Commission documents (OJ 1993 L 340, p. 41, hereinafter “the Code of Conduct”) to establish the principles governing access to the documents they hold. The Code of Conduct provides:“The Commission and the Council will severally take steps to implement these principles before 1 January 1994.”2 In implementation of that undertaking, on 8 February 1994, on the basis of Article 162 of the EC Treaty (now Article 218 EC), the Commission adopted Decision 94/90/ECSC, EC, Euratom on public access to Commission documents (OJ 1994 L 46, p. 58). Article 1 of that decision formally adopted the Code of Conduct, the text of which is annexed to the decision (hereinafter “Decision 94/90”).3 The Code of Conduct sets out the following general principle:“The public will have the widest possible access to documents held by the Commission and the Council.‘Document’ means any written text, whatever its medium, which contains existing data and is held by the Commission or the Council.”4 The factors which may be relied upon by an institution as grounds for rejecting an application for access to documents are listed in the Code of Conduct in the following terms:“The institutions will refuse access to any document where disclosure could undermine:— the protection of the public interest (public security, international relations, monetary stability, court proceedings, inspections and investigations),— the protection of the individual and of privacy,— the protection of commercial and industrial secrecy,— the protection of the Community's financial interests,— the protection of confidentiality as requested by the natural or legal persons that supplied the information or as required by the legislation of the Member State that supplied the information.They may also refuse access in order to protect the institution's interest in the confidentiality of its proceedings.”5 The Code of Conduct also states, under the heading “Processing of initial applications”:“Where the document held by an institution was written by a natural or legal person, a Member State, another Community institution or body or any other national or international body, the application must be sent direct to the author” (“the authorship rule”).6 On 4 March 1994, the Commission adopted a communication on improved access to documents (OJ 1994 C 67, p. 5, hereinafter “the 1994 communication”), giving details of the criteria for implementation of Decision 94/90. That communication states that “anyone may... ask for access to any unpublished Commission document, including preparatory documents and other explanatory material”. With regard to the exceptions provided for in the Code of Conduct, the communication states that the Commission “may take the view that access to a document should be refused because its disclosure could undermine public and private interests and the good functioning of the institution” On that point, the communication stresses: “There is nothing automatic about the exemptions, and each request for access to a document will be considered on its own merits.” As regards the processing of confirmatory applications, the 1994 communication states:“If an applicant is told that access is to be refused, and is not satisfied with the explanation, he or she can ask the Commission's Secretary-General to review the matter and either confirm or overturn the refusal.”’
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