Assignment of Judges to the Chambers

(2006/C 190/24)

On 5 July 2006, the Court of First Instance decided to establish five Chambers of five Judges and five Chambers of three Judges for the period from 1 October 2006 to 31 August 2007 and to assign Judges to them as follows:

In the First Chamber sitting with three Judges, the Judges who sit with the President of the Chamber to make up the Chamber will be designated in turn, in the order provided for by Article 6 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, subject to the presence of connected cases. In the Second to Fifth Chambers sitting with three Judges, the President of the Chamber will sit either with the Judges referred to at (a) above or with those referred to at (b) above, depending on which of those formations the Judge-Rapporteur belongs to. For cases in which the President of the Chamber is the Judge-Rapporteur, the President of the Chamber will sit with the Judges of one or other of those formations alternately in accordance with the order in which the cases are registered, subject to the presence of connected cases.

In cases where the written procedure was completed and a hearing in the oral procedure was held or fixed before 1 October 2006, the First Chamber sitting with three Judges shall continue to sit with the same composition as previously for the oral procedure, the deliberation and the judgment.

Composition of the Grand Chamber

On 5 July 2006 the Court of First Instance decided, in accordance with Article 10(1) of the Rules of Procedure, that for the period from 1 October 2006 to 31 August 2007 the 13 Judges of whom the Grand Chamber is composed shall be the President of the Court of First Instance, the Presidents of the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Chambers, Extended Compositions, the Judges of the Chamber, Extended Composition, who would have had to hear the case in question if it had been assigned to a Chamber composed of five Judges, and as many other Judges as necessary to complete the Grand Chamber, designated by the President of the Court of First Instance, from among the Judges of each of the other Chambers, in the order of precedence of those Judges within their Chambers according to seniority in office under Article 6 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, in a rota applied during the period of three years for which the Presidents of the Chambers composed of five Judges are elected.

Plenary session

On 5 July 2006 the Court of First Instance decided, in accordance with the second subparagraph of Article 32(1) of the Rules of Procedure, that where, following the designation of an Advocate General pursuant to Article 17 of the Rules of Procedure, there is an even number of Judges in the Court of First Instance sitting in plenary session, the rota established in advance, applied during the period of three years for which the Presidents of the Chambers composed of five Judges are elected, in accordance with which the President of the Court is to designate the Judge who will not take part in the judgment of the case shall be in reverse order to the order in which the Judges rank according to their seniority in office under Article 6 of the Rules of Procedure unless the Judge who would thus be designated is the Judge-Rapporteur. In that event, it is the Judge ranking immediately above him who shall be designated.

Designation of the Judge replacing the President of the Court of First Instance as the Judge hearing applications for interim measures

On 5 July 2006 the Court of First Instance decided, in accordance with Article 106 of the Rules of Procedure, to designate Judge García-Valdecasas to replace the President of the Court of First Instance for the purpose of deciding applications for interim measures where the latter is absent or prevented from dealing with them, in respect of the period from 1 October 2006 to 31 August 2007.

Criteria for assigning cases to Chambers

On 5 July 2006 the Court of First Instance laid down criteria as follows for the assignment of cases to the Chambers for the period from 1 October 2006 to 31 August 2006, in accordance with Article 12 of the Rules of Procedure:

In applying those rotas, the First Chamber shall not be taken into consideration at each fifth turn.

The President of the Court of First Instance may derogate from the rotas on the ground that cases are related or with a view to ensuring an even spread of the workload.