27It is true that, when an applicant challenges the lawfulness of a decision refusing him access to a document on the basis of one of the exceptions provided for by Article 4 of Regulation No 1049/2001, claiming that the exception relied on by the institution concerned was not applicable to the document requested, the General Court is obliged to order production of the document and to examine it, if it is to ensure the applicant’s judicial protection. Indeed, if it has not itself consulted the document concerned, the General Court will not be in a position to assess in the specific case whether access to the document could validly be refused by that institution on the basis of the exception relied on or, consequently, to assess the lawfulness of a decision refusing access to that document (see, to that effect, Case C‑135/11 P IFAW Internationaler Tierschutz-Fonds v Commission [2012] ECR, paragraph 75).
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