16Ruling upon the present appellants plea in law, to the effect that the refusal of access to the documents sought involves infringement of the right to a fair trial, and more specifically of the guarantees provided for in Article 6(3) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, signed in Rome on 4 November 1950 (‘the ECHR’), as well as infringement of the principle of proportionality, the Court of First Instance held as follows in paragraphs 50 to 55 of the judgment under appeal:50 It should be recalled, first, that, under Article 2(1) of Regulation No 1049/2001, the beneficiaries of the right of access to documents of the institutions are “[a]ny citizen of the Union, and any natural or legal person residing or having its registered office in a Member State”. That provision makes it clear that the purpose of the regulation is to guarantee access for everyone to public documents and not only access for the requesting party to documents concerning him.51 Second, the exceptions to access to documents, provided for by Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001, are framed in mandatory terms. It follows that the institutions are obliged to refuse access to documents falling under any one of those exceptions once the relevant circumstances are shown to exist (see, by analogy, Case T-105/95 WWF UK v Commission [1997] ECR II-313, paragraph 58, and Case T-20/99 Denkavit Nederland v Commission [2000] ECR II-3011, paragraph 39).52 Consequently, the particular interest which may be asserted by a requesting party in obtaining access to a document concerning him personally cannot be taken into account when applying the mandatory exceptions provided for by Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001.53 The applicant claims, in essence, that the Council was obliged to grant him access to the documents requested in so far as those documents are necessary in order for him to secure his right to a fair trial in Case T-47/03.54 Since the Council relied on the mandatory exceptions provided for by Article 4(1)(a) of Regulation No 1049/2001 in the first decision refusing access, it cannot be accused of not having taken into account any particular need of the applicant to have the requested documents made available to him.55 Consequently, even if those documents prove necessary for the applicant's defence in Case T-47/03, which is a question to be considered in that case, that circumstance is not relevant for the purpose of assessing the validity of the first decision refusing access’.
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