Association de la presse internationale ASBL (API) v Commission of the European Communities (T-36/04)

Judgment of 12 Sept 2007

law://eu/cjeu/2004/t-36-04/para_42@2026-11-13

42In the view of the Commission, the protection of court proceedings requires it to take account of the approach followed by each court in that respect Neither the Court of Justice nor the Court of First Instance publishes the pleadings submitted to it and, so far as the latter is concerned, third party access to the case-file is strictly controlled in accordance with the third subparagraph of Article 5(3) of the Instructions to the Registrar of the Court of First Instance, adopted on 3 March 1994 (OJ 1994 L 78, p. 32) as amended, lastly, on 5 June 2002 (OJ 2002 L 160, p. 1), under which ‘[n]o third party, private or public, may have access to the case-file or to the procedural documents without the express authorisation of the President, after the parties have been heard’ and ‘[t]hat authorisation may be granted only upon written request accompanied by a detailed explanation of the third party's legitimate interest in inspecting the file’. Furthermore, Regulation No 1049/2001 does not lay down how the courts must manage their proceedings. In that connection the Court of Justice has pointed out that there is no general rule on the confidentiality of pleadings or as to whether the parties to proceedings may disclose their own written submissions to third parties. However, the Court has stressed that special considerations apply where ‘disclosure of a document might adversely affect the proper administration of justice’ (Order in Case C-376/98 Germany v Parliament and Council [2000] ECR I-2247, paragraph 10).

Association de la presse internationale ASBL (API) v Commission of the European Communities (T-36/04)

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