75The Commission cannot, therefore, implicitly amend the abovementioned principle by means of an individual decision, as the Court of Justice clearly determined in Case C-313/90 CIRFS and Others v Commission [1993] ECR I-1125, paragraph 44. However, that is what the Commission has done in the present case by also departing from the case-law according to which it is judicially bound by its administrative practice (CIRFS and Others v Commission, paragraphs 34 and 36, and Case T-380/94 AIUFFASS and AKT v Commission [1996] ECR II-2169, paragraph 57), which implies that it is in the light of the rules which the institution has laid down for itself that the contested decision falls to be reviewed (Case T-149/95 Ducros v Commission [1997] ECR II-2031, paragraph 61). It follows that the Commission cannot claim, in order to dispute the principle that the aid has to be assessed in relation to the criteria applicable at the time of notification, that the examples cited in paragraph 74 above concern cases in which the legislature clearly established a rule diverging from the rule developed in the case-law. Besides the fact that the Commission is itself the legislature, such a line of argument would allow it to free itself from any obligation to ensure the continuity of its decision-making practice.
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