La giustizia comunitaria dopo Nizza. Rilievi sociologico-giuridici

Abstract

The recent reform of the European Community’s judiciary affected the structure and the rules of procedure both of the Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Court of First Instance (CFI), aiming at enhancing the effectiveness of the administration of justice within the European Community, particularly with a view to the forthcoming enlargement. This note deals first of all with the background of this reform, emphasising that it is part of the process of general reform of the Community’s institutions. It then examines the main structural changes of the Community courts system brought about by the Treaty of Nice: the strengthening of the CFI’s status (institutional placement and competencies) and the possibility of creating specialised chambers, with the ECJ emerging almost automatically at the top of this pyramid structure. Finally, a brief description of the amendments applied to the Rules of Procedure of the ECJ and the CFI is followed by a discussion of their possible impact on the rate of litigation, taking certain idiosyncratic features of the community’s judicial process into ac count, such as the need for everything to be translated into all the official languages and the lack of alternative ways of solving disputes.