INSTRUCTIONS TO THE REGISTRAR OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL
of 21 May 2014
THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL,
ON A PROPOSAL FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE TRIBUNAL,
Having regard to the Rules of Procedure adopted on 21 May 2014,
and in particular Article 132 thereof,
has laid down the following
INSTRUCTIONS TO THE REGISTRAR
Article 1
Definitions
The definitions adopted in Article 1 of the Rules of Procedure shall apply equally for the purposes of these Instructions.
Article 2
Responsibilities and replacement of the Registrar
The responsibilities of the Registrar shall be those laid down in Article 20 of the Rules of Procedure. The replacement of the Registrar shall take place in accordance with Articles 18 and 19 of those Rules.
Article 3
Opening hours of the Registry
1. The offices of the Registry shall be open every working day. All days other than Saturdays, Sundays and the official holidays on the list referred to in Article 25(2) of the Rules of Procedure shall be working days.
2. If a working day as referred to in the preceding paragraph is a holiday for the officials and servants of the institution, arrangements shall be made for a skeleton staff to be on duty at the Registry during the hours in which it is normally open to the public.
3. The Registry shall be open to the public from 9.00 a.m. to 12 noon and from 2.30 p.m. to 4.30 p.m. The offices of the Registry shall be closed to the public on Friday afternoons during the judicial vacations provided for in Article 25(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
4. The offices of the Registry shall be open only to the representatives of the parties or to persons duly authorised by them, and to persons making an application for legal aid.
5. When the Registry is closed, procedural documents may be validly lodged with the janitor at the entrance to the Court of Justice of the European Union, rue du Fort Niedergrünewald, Luxembourg, at any time of the day or night. The janitor shall make a record, which shall constitute good evidence, of the date and time of such lodgment and shall issue a receipt upon request.
Article 4
The register
1. Judgments and orders as well as all the procedural documents placed on the file in cases brought before the Tribunal shall be entered in the register in the order in which they are submitted, with the exception of those drawn up for the purposes of an amicable settlement within the meaning of Article 90 of the Rules of Procedure, as referred to in Article 6(4) of these Instructions.
2. A note of the registration, including the registration number and the date of entry in the register, shall be made by the Registrar on the original of every procedural document or on the version deemed to be the original of that document in accordance with Article 3 of the Decision of the Tribunal of 20 September 2011 on the lodging and service of procedural documents by means of e-Curia (OJ C 289, p. 11) (‘the e-Curia Decision’), and, if a party so requests, on any copy submitted for the purpose. The note made on the original of the procedural document must be signed by the Registrar.
3. Entries in the register shall be numbered consecutively. They shall contain the information necessary for identifying the procedural document, in particular the date of lodgment, the date of registration, the number of the case and the nature of the document.
4. For the purposes of the application of the preceding paragraph, the following dates shall be taken into account, depending on the circumstances:
— the date on which the procedural document was received by the Registrar or by a Registry official or employee,
— the date referred to in Article 3(5) above,
— the date referred to in Article 5 of the e-Curia Decision, or
— in the cases provided for in the first paragraph of Article 54 of the Statute and Article 8(1) of Annex I to the Statute, the date on which the procedural document was lodged with the Registrar of the Court of Justice or with the Registrar of the General Court of the European Union.
5. Where a correction is made to the register, a note to that effect shall be made therein. The register kept in electronic form shall be set up and maintained in such a way that no registration can be deleted therefrom and that following any amendment or rectification the original entry is preserved.
Article 5
The number in the list
1. When an application initiating proceedings is registered, the case shall be given a serial number preceded by ‘F-’ and followed by an indication of the year. Where the third subparagraph of Article 45(2) of the Rules of Procedure applies, the indication of the year in the number in the list shall correspond to the date deemed to be the date of lodging of the document for the purposes of compliance with the procedural time limits.
2. Applications for interim measures, applications for rectification or interpretation of judgments or orders, applications for revision or initiating third-party proceedings, applications for the taxation of costs and applications for legal aid relating to pending cases shall be given the same serial number as the principal action, followed by a reference to indicate that the proceedings concerned are special forms of procedure. In the event of a separation of cases as provided for in Article 44(2) of the Rules of Procedure, the case or cases separated from the others shall keep the same serial number, followed by a reference to indicate the separation and, where appropriate, a numerical identifier. An action which is preceded by an application for legal aid in connection therewith shall be given the same case number as the latter. Where the General Court of the European Union refers a case back to the Tribunal following an appeal, that case shall keep the number previously given to it when it was before the Tribunal, followed by a reference to indicate the referral.
Article 6
The file and access to the file
1. The case-file shall contain the procedural documents, where applicable together with their annexes, bearing the note referred to in Article 4(2) of these Instructions, with the exception of those whose acceptance is refused pursuant to Article 8 of these Instructions, the decisions taken in the case, including any decisions relating to refusal to accept documents, preparatory reports for the hearing, minutes of the hearing, documents served by the Registrar and any other documents or correspondence to be taken into consideration in deciding the case.
2. If in doubt the Registrar shall refer the question of the placing of a procedural document on the case-file to the President in order for a decision to be taken.
3. Items contained in the file shall be given a serial number.
4. By way of derogation from paragraph 1, procedural documents drawn up for the purposes of an amicable settlement within the meaning of Article 90 of the Rules of Procedure (see Article 4(1) of these Instructions) shall be kept in a separate part of the file.
5. The confidential and non-confidential versions of procedural documents shall be kept in separate sections of the file. Access to the confidential section of the file shall be confined to the parties in respect of whom no confidential treatment has been ordered.
6. A procedural document which is produced in a case and placed on the file of that case may not be taken into account for the purpose of preparing another case for hearing.
7. At the close of the proceedings, the Registrar shall arrange for the case-file to be closed and archived. The closed file shall contain a list of the procedural documents on the file (with the exception of those drawn up for the purposes of an amicable settlement within the meaning of Article 90 of the Rules of Procedure), an indication of their number, and a cover page showing the case number in the list, the parties and the date on which the file was closed.
Article 7
Confidential treatment
1. Without prejudice to Article 47(1) of the Rules of Procedure, in respect of procedural documents which the main parties intend to produce on their own initiative or produce at the request of the Tribunal, the main parties shall indicate, where appropriate, the existence of confidential information and shall lodge a version of the document from which that information has been omitted. In those circumstances, the party concerned shall simultaneously transmit to the Tribunal the relevant document in its entirety, to enable the Tribunal to check that the information omitted is indeed confidential and that the omissions are not prejudicial to the other party's right to a fair hearing or to the proper administration of justice. Where appropriate, the Tribunal shall request the production of an amended version. The full version of the document in question shall be returned by the Tribunal after examination.
2. A party may apply pursuant to Article 87(1) of the Rules of Procedure for certain information on the case-file to be treated as confidential in relation to an intervener or, where cases are joined in accordance with Article 44(3) of the Rules of Procedure, in relation to another party in a joined case.
Article 8
Non-acceptance of procedural documents and putting them in order
1. The Registrar shall ensure that procedural documents placed on the file are in conformity with the provisions of the Statute, the Rules of Procedure, the Practice Directions to parties and these Instructions to the Registrar. If necessary, he shall allow the parties a period of time for making good any formal irregularities in the procedural documents lodged. Non-compliance with formal requirements may render the action or other procedural documents inadmissible.
2. The Registrar shall refuse to register procedural documents which are not provided for by the Rules of Procedure. If in doubt, or in the event of a challenge by the parties, the Registrar shall refer the matter to the President in order for a decision to be taken.
3. Without prejudice to the third subparagraph of Article 45(2) of the Rules of Procedure and to the e-Curia Decision, the Registrar shall accept only documents bearing the original handwritten signature of the party's representative.
4. The Registrar shall ensure that the volume of procedural documents, including their annexes, does not exceed that which would preclude the proper administration of justice, and that they are lodged in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Practice Directions to parties.
5. Save in the cases expressly provided for by the Rules of Procedure, the Registrar shall refuse to accept pleadings or procedural documents of the parties drawn up, even in part, in a language other than the language of the case. However, where duly justified, the Registrar may provisionally accept annexes in a language other than the language of the case. If in doubt, or in the event of a challenge by the parties, the Registrar shall refer the matter to the President in order for a decision to be taken.
6. Where an application to intervene originating from a third party other than a Member State is not drawn up in the language of the case, the Registrar shall require the application to be put in order before it is served on the parties. If a version of such an application drawn up in the language of the case is lodged within the period prescribed for this purpose by the Registrar, the date on which the first version, not in the language of the case, was lodged shall be taken as the date on which the document was lodged.
7. If the party concerned fails to put the document in order or challenges the request to that effect, the Registrar shall refer the matter to the President in order for a decision to be taken.
Article 9
Certificate of a lawyer's authority to practise
For the purposes of the production of the document required by Article 31(2) of the Rules of Procedure certifying that the lawyer representing a party or assisting the party's agent is authorised to practise before a court of a Member State or of another State which is a party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, reference may be made to a document previously lodged at the Registry of the Tribunal. In every case, the document to which reference may be made must have been drawn up not more than five years before the date on which the application was lodged.
Article 10
Service
1. The Registrar shall ensure that, where the Statute or the Rules of Procedure provide for a document to be served, a notice to be given or a communication to be made, the steps are carried out in accordance with Article 36 of the Rules of Procedure.
2. In the procedures on applications for interim measures referred to in Articles 115 to 120 of the Rules of Procedure, the Registrar may send procedural documents by all appropriate means which urgency requires.
Article 11
Setting and extension of time limits
1. The Registrar shall fix and extend, where appropriate, the time limits provided for in the Rules of Procedure in accordance with the power delegated to him under Article 39(2) of the Rules of Procedure.
2. The time limits provided for in the Rules of Procedure may be extended only in exceptional circumstances. Any application to that effect must be properly reasoned and must reach the Registry in sufficient time in relation to the expiry of the time limit initially prescribed. A time limit may, in principle, not be extended more than once. Procedural time limits not provided for in the Rules of Procedure may be extended by the President.
Article 12
Hearings and minutes of hearings
1. Before every public hearing the Registrar shall draw up a cause list in the language of the case. The cause list shall contain the date, time and place of the hearing, the competent formation of the Tribunal, an indication of the cases which will be called and the names of the parties, anonymised, where appropriate, in accordance with Article 48(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
2. The cause list shall be displayed at the entrance to the courtroom.
3. The Registrar shall draw up in the respective language of each case the minutes of every hearing. Those minutes shall contain an indication of the case, the date, time and place of the hearing, if applicable an indication that the hearing was in camera, the names of the Judges and the Registrar present, the names and capacities of the representatives of the parties present, of applicants in person and of the witnesses or experts examined, an indication of the evidence or procedural documents produced at the hearing and, in so far as is necessary, the statements made at the hearing and the decisions pronounced at the hearing by the Tribunal or the President. The minutes shall be sent to the parties.
Article 13
Witnesses and experts
1. The Registrar shall take the measures necessary for giving effect to orders requiring the taking of expert opinion or the examination of witnesses.
2. The Registrar shall obtain from witnesses evidence of their expenses and loss of earnings and from experts a fee note accounting for their expenses and services.
3. The Registrar shall cause sums due to witnesses and experts under the Rules of Procedure to be paid by the cashier of the Tribunal. In the event of a dispute concerning such sums, the Registrar shall refer the matter to the President in order for a decision to be taken.
4. The Registrar shall arrange for the costs of examining experts or witnesses advanced by the Tribunal in a case to be demanded from the parties ordered to pay the costs. If necessary, steps shall be taken pursuant to Article 15(3) of these Instructions.
Article 14
Originals of judgments and orders
1. Originals of judgments and orders of the Tribunal shall be kept in chronological order in the archives of the Registry. A certified copy shall be placed on the case-file.
2. At the parties' request, the Registrar shall supply them with additional certified copies of the original of a judgment or of an order.
3. A note of judgments or orders of the General Court of the European Union on appeal, or of the Court of Justice in the event of a review, shall be made in the margin of the judgment or order concerned and a certified copy annexed to the original of the judgment or order appealed against.
Article 15
Deposit and recovery of sums
1. Where sums paid out by way of legal aid, sums advanced to witnesses or experts, or sums payable or to be deposited by the parties pursuant to Articles 108 and 109 of the Rules of Procedure are recoverable by the cashier of the Tribunal, the Registrar shall, by registered letter with a form for acknowledgement of receipt or, if necessary, by means of e-Curia, demand payment of those sums from the party which is to bear them in accordance with the decision by which the proceedings have been closed or with the reasoned decision of the President of the Tribunal provided for in Article 109 of the Rules of Procedure. Sums deposited shall be paid into an escrow account of the institution.
2. Service shall then be deemed to have been effected on the addressee by registered post on the 10th day following the lodging of the registered letter at the post office of the place where the Tribunal has its seat, unless it is shown by the acknowledgement of receipt that the letter was received on a different date or the addressee informs the Registrar, within three weeks of being informed by fax, that the document to be served has not reached him.
3. If the sums payable are not paid within the period prescribed by the Registrar, he may request the Tribunal to make an enforceable decision and, if necessary, require its enforcement.
Article 16
Registry charges
1. Where a copy of a procedural document or an extract from the case-file or from the register is supplied to a party on paper at its request, the Registrar shall impose a Registry charge of EUR 3,50 per page for a certified copy and EUR 2,50 per page for an uncertified copy.
2. Where the Registrar arranges for a procedural document or an extract from the case-file to be translated at the request of a party, a Registry charge of EUR 1,25 per line shall be imposed.
Article 17
Publication of documents and posting of documents on the internet
1. The Registrar shall be responsible for the publications of the Tribunal and for posting on the internet documents relating to the Tribunal.
2. The Registrar shall cause to be published in the
Official Journal of the European Union
the decisions provided for by the Rules of Procedure, these Instructions and the Practice Directions to parties, as well as notices of proceedings brought and of decisions closing proceedings.
3. The Registrar shall ensure that the case-law of the Tribunal is made public in accordance with any arrangements adopted by the Tribunal.
Article 18
Advice for parties' representatives
When requested by the parties' representatives, the Registrar shall provide them with information on the practice followed pursuant to the Rules of Procedure, the Practice Directions to parties, these Instructions to the Registrar, the e-Curia Decision and the e-Curia Conditions of Use in order to ensure that proceedings are conducted efficiently.
Article 19
Derogations from these Instructions
Where the special circumstances of a case and the proper administration of justice so require, the Tribunal or the President may derogate from any of these Instructions.
Article 20
Entry into force of these Instructions
1. These Instructions to the Registrar, which are authentic in the languages referred to in Article 1 of Council Regulation No 1, applicable to the Tribunal by virtue of Article 7(2) of Annex I to the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union, shall be published in the
Official Journal of the European Union
. They shall enter into force on the first day of the third month following their publication.
2. The Instructions to the Registrar of 11 July 2012 (OJ L 260, p. 1) are hereby repealed and replaced by these Instructions to the Registrar.
Done at Luxembourg, 21 May 2014.
Registrar
W. HAKENBERG
President
S. VAN RAEPENBUSCH
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