Preliminary rulings in the area of freedom, security and justice: Urgent procedure

A while ago, the Commission proposed (COM(2006) 346 final) that the right to refer preliminary questions to the Court of Justice under Title IV of the EC Treaty should be extended to courts other than those of last resort.

Currently, work is under way to set up a special procedure to enable the Court of Justice to answer preliminary questions quickly in cases of urgency in the areas covered by Title VI of the EU Treaty and Title IV of the EC Treaty.

The Court of Justice has submitted two proposals to the Council. The first is for amendments to the Statute of the Court of Justice because it is necessary to provide for a derogation from Articles 20 and 23 of the Statute to set up an expedited, accelerated and/or urgent preliminary reference procedure. You can find the proposed amendment in Council Document 11824/07 here.

The second proposal is for amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Court. The amendments govern an urgent preliminary ruling procedure for certain references for a preliminary ruling in the area of freedom, security and justice. You can find the proposed amendments in Council Document 11759/1/07 here. The Court explains that the proposed amendments allow for all the Member States to participate in a manner comparable to what currently applies in normal proceedings for a preliminary ruling, in particular as regards the availability of translations, but which, for most member States, limits the procedure to the oral part. Save in exceptional cases, there is also a written part, but, for maximum speed, that part is limited to the parties and persons conversant with the language of the case, that is to say, the parties to the main proceedings, the Member State from which the reference is made and the institution or institutions affected by the reference. The proposed amendments are followed by an explanation by the Court.

Those proposals follow-up on the Court's discussion paper of September 25th 2006 (also available as Council Document 13272/06), supplemented on December 14th 2006 (also available as Council Document 17013/06). The United Kingdom had made its position known on the first discussion paper in Council Document 16705/06. The President of the Council responded on April 20th 2007, following discussions regarding the introduction of such a procedure which took place within the Council on the basis of the Court's two discussion papers. Presumably, the final version of that letter of April 20th 2007 reflects the contents of this draft made available in the Council's registry of documents.

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