Advocate General
Eleanor Sharpston QC

Advocate General Eleanor Sharpston QC has launched a claim in another of the EU courts after the EU issued a declaration in January stating that her mandate would come to an end days later, despite the fact the post of advocate general is not attached to any member state and that her appointment was due to come to an end next October.

President of the court, Koen Lenaerts, wrote to the Council declaring a vacancy from 1 February and asking member states to nominate a new advocate general to replace Ms Sharpston.

She lodged two claims at the EU’s General Court earlier this month. The first is against the Conference of the Representatives of the Governments of the Member States — the EU 27, while the second is against the Court of Justice itself.

Ms Sharpston argues that the assertions of the EU 27 are unlawful because they bypass safeguards in the court’s statute, which is primary EU law. That states that the mandate of a serving member may only be brought to an end by the court itself for what are usually disciplinary reasons.

The lawyer, who has been at the ECJ since 2006, told the Law Gazette earlier this year: “It may be that the very last service I can render to my court is to see whether there is something I can do to push back against the member states intruding into the court’s autonomy and independence.”