ECJ facing workload crisis

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is facing a “crisis” due to its workload and urgently needs to appoint more advocates-general and judges, a House of Lords’ report has found.

The expansion of the jurisdiction of the ECJ since the Lisbon Treaty coupled with the rise in EU membership to 27 states has led to an unmanageable high a burden on the court, according to the report, published last week by the Lords’ EU sub-committee on justice and institutions.

While the ECJ is facing “another crisis of workload soon”, the prognosis for the General Court is “even bleaker”. It is “struggling to manage its existing and ever increasing workload, and [has been] twice criticized by the ECJ for taking too long to deliver justice, most recently in 2009”.

The report calls for “urgent” structural solutions to be found, and recommends the appointment of more judges in the General Court and more advocates-general in the ECJ to speed up the handling of cases.

There are currently 27 judges in the ECJ, one for every member state, plus eight advocates-general. The General Court, which also has 27 judges, hears more fact-based and evidence-based cases. One tenth of its cases involve competition law, including challenges to mergers and allegations of anti-competitive behavior, sometimes with files running to 20,000 pages.

The Lords’ committee heard that the ECJ has usually received about 250 references from national courts but last year this rose to 300 in the first nine months, which suggests an annual figure of 400.

Lord Bowness, chairman of the sub-committee, said: “The General Court has an excessive case–load leading to serious delays for litigants, for example, an average time of 33 months for competition cases which is clearly unacceptable, and we believe that the time to leave the court to work as it is has passed.

“Solutions need to be addressed, and we strongly feel that the only long term way of improving the workload issues is to increase the judiciary.”