Court of Justice of the European Union

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I served on Sub-Committee E when we produced our report last year but I was unable to speak in the debate last October, which is why I am here today. However, the wheels of EU government, and our own, turn desperately slowly and little has happened during the interval.

The president of the Court himself proposed reforms over a year ago. Some of these are, at last, before us today. I support the Motion that Parliament approves the draft regulations as far as they go, but, as we have heard, they do not go far enough to solve the basic problem. The EU Committee has had hardly any time to consider this matter. Once again, this House is discussing important business at the 11th hour—after everything has been said and when it is too late to change anything—although this has never in the past prevented noble Lords from saying what they think again.

The evidence suggests that the Court of the European Union is at serious risk of implosion. The Minister for Europe says that it is not a crisis. The crisis is not here today, but it is just around the corner, even in the Court of Justice itself. The number and length of cases before it has made some areas of the Court almost unmanageable. In our report we suggested increasing the number of advocates-general in the Court of Justice, as already provided for in the Lisbon treaty. Let us remember that with the new member states, the ratio went up in 2003 to 27:8 from 15:8. No wonder the workload became unmanageable. The rearrangement in the Grand Chamber may help, but meanwhile the General Court is still stuck with only one judge per member. What a terrible advertisement for the European Union, and such easy prey for the ever-prowling Euro-sceptics mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson. They include some in the Conservative Party who must distrust the size and power of the European Court; we have to face that.

The Minister will have tried to put pressure on his own colleagues, quite apart from other EU Ministers, and this regulation will at least bring him some temporary relief. But as the noble Lord, Lord Bowness, and others have said repeatedly, the Court of Justice is vital for the proper functioning of the European Union itself and it therefore must receive the full support of member states if it is to succeed.

The biggest problems, as the Minister freely admitted, lie in the General Court, which is already overloaded. The pending cases are piling up. The average turnaround in a recent year was 33 months, and one competition case, which has been quoted frequently, took more than four years to complete. As the Minister said, and the noble Lord, Lord Marks, repeated, we suggested some time ago that there should be 12 more judges and tighter rules of procedure rather than the creation of specialist courts. Her Majesty’s Government did not, and perhaps still do not, accept the need for more judges, although the Minister says that the Government take the issue very seriously. What are we to think?

In the debate last October, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, appeared to agree with the direction of our report and the need for some procedural reforms such as economies in the length of pleadings—but not, of course, with anything that might incur extra cost. The committee suggested that this need not involve taxpayers directly since, as an EU institution, the Court had a reasonable claim on the EU budget. My noble friend Lord Williamson will explain the truth of this. The Minister mentioned value for money, but he was silent on the source of funding. I hope that he will advise us on this later. I am not proposing another government assault on elements of the CAP; rather I seek a recognition in principle that the EU budget is what the Court should look to. As the noble Lord, Lord Marks, said, the costs are bound to increase over time.

The European Union Civil Service Tribunal is a similar story, although we did not have the same concerns. Since our report, the Government have accepted that delays can and do arise from the shortage of CST judges, especially when one falls ill or cannot attend. Again, the president had proposed an ad hoc solution whereby three former judges would come in on a temporary basis, but absurdly, until today Her Majesty’s Government rejected this obvious proposal. Why was that? It was because of budgetary concerns. Perhaps the Minister will explain how it can take so long to reach a change of heart under these new regulations.

The question of judges in the General Court is excluded from the present draft regulations, but the Minister for Europe has assured the committee in a letter that the friends of the presidency group is going to look at it between now and December. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, also mentioned this. Could this be another opportunity for delay? I am all for ginger groups stitching up solutions, but this method betrays a degree of exasperation with the formal structure, and further delays will follow.

On the Court’s proposed new rules of procedure, the Government have been reluctant to let the Court itself rather than the parties make the decisions, but in the end they recognised the need for some economies in the excessive length of written pleadings, thus reducing the burden of translation. Let us remember that there are 23 official languages in the European Union. I am myself in favour of English alongside French, but the committee did not support that as it is a highly sensitive issue.

The evidence for urgent reform before the Committee a year or two ago was overwhelming, and it remains so today. We have heard some of the statistics today. I am sure that the Minister is much more aware than any of us of the urgency of these reforms and of the apparent helplessness, not to say impotence, of all our Governments on this issue. I look forward to his comments.