President, Presidents and the remains of the Court’s authority
Thu, Oct 8, 2009 posted by Pescatorius
Our estimations were right: Skouris has been reappointed President of the ECJ.
However, the composition of the new chambers is even more interesting (and I would even say more important).
The new presidents of five-judge chambers are Antonio Tizzano, Jose Narciso Cunha Rodrigues, Koen Lenaerts and Jean-Claude Bonichot.
Lenaerts has been president of the Fourth Chamber for the past three years. It was no surprise.
Antonio Tizzano is a superb EU lawyer, experienced, wise, clever and a firm believer in European integration. He will do a good job. no doubt.
Cunha is a distinguished member of the Portuguese legal world, former “Procurador Geral”, and he has proved to be brave at times: remember judgments in which he was rapporteur like Collins or MRAX. He will also do a good job.
Jean-Claude Bonichot is the young choice. He has only been at the Court for three years, but his election is obviously a sign of respect from his peers. France has always sent good judges to the Court. Remember Puissochet, an outstanding lawyer and personality.
There are no presidents from the the “new” member States. This message is not good at all. However, the election is the result of an election among the judges themselves, and it is obvious that even the “new” judges look up to their “older” colleagues.
Now it is time for these Chambers to preserve coherence and consistency in the case-law. With a rotating and arbitrary Grande Chambre, the five-judge Chambers are the very key to the Court’s authority. Let’s hope they do exactly that.
-Pescatorius
October 9th, 2009 at 10:49 am
This is not a good sign in itself but this is a positive sign of realism from the Court. The political impetus behind the enlargement is no substitute for many years of training in European integration. Some judges of the new Member States are just great (See e.g., Pelikánová at the CFI), and some of the old Member States, including the founding ones, do not shine, but it is just natural that — broadly speaking — the former are less severely selected than the latter. There was a very big risk associated with the enlargement and the ECJ and the CFI did a great job dealing with it.
Beyond the enlargement, what matters is that ECJ and CFI judges, wherever they come from, be the most qualified to “adjudicate Europe”. In this respect it is striking to see how severely the Judges of the Civil Service Tribunal are selected, at least in contrast with what happens in general for the judges of the two superior Courts.
October 9th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I couldn’t agree more.
Once the Lisbon Treaty enters into force, a similar committee to the one created for the Civil Service Tribunal will take care of “filtering” judges to the CFI and ECJ.
However, some member States don’t even need the committee: the Netherlands is now holding an open competition to replace judge Timmermans.
I wonder now why Dutch judges at the ECJ (and CFI) have always been so damn good…
- Pescatorius
October 10th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Remind me why being a “firm believer in European integration” is relevant to a judge’s suitability.
October 10th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
I guess it is better to have a judge at a Constitutional Court that believes in the Constitution he is entrusted to interpret.
Same applies here: better to have a judge at the ECJ who believes in European integration (i.e., the Treaties) in order to interpret the Treaties.
The opposite is an anomaly. But unfortunately these anomalies have become a reality many a time, and not only at the ECJ.
- Pescatorius
October 10th, 2009 at 10:50 pm
True: the Lisbon Treaty will inject some meritocratic dimension to the appointment of the ECJ-CFI judges along the lines followed for the Civil Service Tribunal (CST). Yet, the little experience (2 rounds of appointments so far) acquired at the CST does shows the pivotal (and perhaps controversial) role played by the ‘Comité des sages’ in selecting the roaster of eligible candidates. That’s where a good dose of subjectivity and pork barrel kick in. This is still better - you may argue - than leaving the appointment to the sole Member States’ authorithy without any filtering made by ‘independent’ former members of the ECJ.
As for the countries which have already introduced some meritocracy and transparency in their appointment process, by launching open competition on their main newspapers, it is worth mentioning the example of the UK (Forwood, Schieman, Sharpston), followed by Finland (Rosas, Kanninen, Jääskinen) and, as already mentioned, the Netherlands …
October 11th, 2009 at 8:19 pm
Unfortunately the “Comité des sages” has not been able to avoid politics. Who will believe that the nationality of the CST judges, with all but one big Member States now represented, is a mere coincidence? There is no doubt whatsoever that Italy will get its judge at the next round. Is it that important that the big Member States be represented in a Court that deals with public staff cases?
But it remains that this new procedure is a quantum leap forward in the way judges are selected.