Luxembourg court inflated caseload to recruit more judges argues tribunal member

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) abused its own rules in order to double the number of judges in the General Court, one of its tribunal members has said.

In a paper for a Brussels think tank, Franklin Dehousse, a Belgian judge at the court, argues it inflated the number of outstanding cases in order to push for more judges – despite the fact its backlog was cleared.

Last year the EU doubled the number of judges on the General Court, at a cost of €22.9 million a year, in addition to €6.9m in “installation costs”.

Mr Dehousse writes: “The Court of Justice’s 2014 proposal changed fundamentally the EU courts system. Doubling the number of members of the General Court and abolishing the Civil Service Tribunal will have multiple consequences for the process of the appointment of judges, the geographic basis of their recruitment, the management of personnel of the CJEU and the appellate process. These changes make the absence of impact assessment and wide consultation process more shocking.”

He adds this has been to the detriment of the specialised, lower courts “despite such specialized courts providing a more quality oriented, productive, and economical outcome.”

Mr Dehousse, who has served at the court for more than 12 years, also attacks the increase in the number of judges as a “a purely mechanical vision of the management of public service reform”, adding it has created a “paradoxical situation” in which the EU judicial system is over-resourced while member states’ own systems are stretched.

The judge said that by the end of 2015 there were so many new recruits that it was “difficult to find work for the existing judges”.