Judgment_paragraph 54 · Hungary v European Parliament and Council of the European Union (C-156/21)

54As the Council submits, by producing such a legal opinion without authorisation, the applicant is confronting the institution concerned, in proceedings concerning the lawfulness of a contested measure, with an opinion issued by its own legal service during the drafting of that measure. In principle, to allow the applicant to put before the Court a legal opinion from an institution the disclosure of which has not been authorised by that institution would be contrary to the requirements of a fair hearing and would be tantamount to circumventing the procedure for requesting access to such a document introduced by Regulation No 1049/2001 (see, to that effect, order of 14 May 2019, Hungary v Parliament, C‑650/18, not published, EU:C:2019:438, paragraph 14 and the case-law cited, and judgment of 31 January 2020, Slovenia v Croatia, C‑457/18, EU:C:2020:65, paragraph 68).