CJEU Case C-572/23 / Judgment
-
CJEU Case C-572/23 / Judgment
Key facts of the case:
Appeal – Institutional law – Members of the European Parliament – Privileges and immunities – Decision to waive parliamentary immunity of Members of the Parliament – Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union – Principle of good administration – Parliament Committee on Legal Affairs – Requirement that the rapporteur be impartial
Outcome of the case:
On those grounds, the Court (Third Chamber) hereby:
- Sets aside the judgment of the General Court of the European Union of 5 July 2023, Puigdemont i Casamajó and Others v Parliament (T‑272/21, EU:T:2023:373);
- Annuls Decisions P9_TA(2021)0059, P9_TA(2021)0060 and P9_TA(2021)0061 of the European Parliament of 9 March 2021;
- Orders the European Parliament to bear its own costs, relating both to the proceedings before the General Court of the European Union and to the appeal proceedings, and to pay those incurred by Mr Carles Puigdemont i Casamajó, Mr Antoni Comín i Oliveres and Ms Clara Ponsatí i Obiols, in those two sets of proceedings;
- Orders the Kingdom of Spain to bear its own costs relating both to the proceedings before the General Court of the European Union and to the appeal proceedings.
-
Paragraphs referring to EU Charter
80. However, in accordance with the values of the rule of law and respect for human rights set out in Article 2 TEU, the Parliament must comply, when examining a request for waiver of immunity, with the legal rules and principles which apply to that immunity and with the Charter, the provisions of which are addressed to the Parliament as one of the institutions of the European Union covered by Article 51(1) thereof. The serving of his or her term of office by the Member concerned – which constitutes the main attribute of the status of Member of the European Parliament and arises from being elected by direct universal suffrage in a free and secret ballot provided for by EU law (judgment of 19 December 2019, Junqueras Vies, C‑502/19, EU:C:2019:1115, paragraph 65) – may be hindered by a decision to waive immunity. It follows that requests for waiver of immunity, which are capable of affecting both the term of office of the Member concerned and, as recalled in paragraph 76 of the present judgment, the proper functioning of the Parliament as a whole, must be examined in the light of the rights of the individual concerned and the principles of representative democracy and of the separation of powers, and not by reference to political guidelines.
81. It is in the light of the foregoing considerations that it is necessary to examine the appellants’ first and second complaints, by which they complain, in essence, that the General Court infringed Article 41(1) of the Charter, in paragraphs 244 to 246 of the judgment under appeal and in paragraphs 247 to 251 of that judgment, respectively, by holding that their argument alleging a lack of impartiality on the part of the rapporteur responsible, within the JURI Committee, for examining the requests for waiver of immunity concerning them was unfounded.
...
85. As the General Court pointed out in paragraphs 225 and 226 of the judgment under appeal, the procedure which may lead to the adoption of a decision to waive immunity must be compatible with the right to good administration, enshrined in Article 41(1) of the Charter.
86. That provision of the Charter provides that every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union. That right, which is conferred on any person, is therefore also conferred on any Member of the Parliament concerned by a request for waiver of immunity.
...
88. In the exercise of its broad discretion, referred to in paragraph 79 of the present judgment, the Parliament may adopt rules which give concrete expression to protection against the risk of bias which Article 41 of the Charter requires.
...
97. It is apparent from point 8 of Notice No 11/2019 that the Parliament took the view that a rapporteur from the same political group as that to which the Member whose immunity is under discussion belongs could not examine the request for waiver of that immunity. That approach is thus based on the consideration that, because they belong to the same political group, that rapporteur and that Member may share certain affinities, in particular political affinities, with the result that legitimate doubts as to possible prejudice, within the meaning of the case-law referred to in paragraph 87 of the present judgment, by that rapporteur in favour of that Member cannot be ruled out. The Parliament therefore, exercising its broad discretion, deemed it necessary, in order to guarantee the impartiality of the rapporteur, as required by Article 41(1) of the Charter, to lay down a rule preventing that rapporteur from belonging to a given political group.
98. Compliance with Article 41(1) of the Charter requires a consistent application of the guarantees established by the institution concerned in order to avoid any legitimate doubt as to bias and to enable requests for waiver of immunity to be dealt with fairly.
...
103. It follows that, given that the Parliament established, in point 8 of Notice No 11/2019, the rule that, in the rotation system applied for the appointment of a rapporteur, any rapporteur who is a member of the political group to which the Member concerned by a request for waiver of immunity belongs is precluded from acting in that case, that institution must also exclude, in order to comply with Article 41(1) of the Charter, a rapporteur in a situation where he or she belongs to the same political group as Members of the political party that instigated the criminal proceedings against the Member, those proceedings form the basis of that request and that party has a specific interest in the outcome of those proceedings. Such a rapporteur could indeed be perceived as not being impartial within the meaning of the case-law referred to in paragraph 87 of the present judgment.
...
105. Consequently, when a Member – who belongs to a political group to which Members of a political party that instigated the criminal proceedings brought against the Member concerned by a request for waiver of immunity also belong, in a situation such as that set out in paragraphs 101 and 103 of the present judgment – is appointed rapporteur, within the JURI Committee, to examine that request, such a rapporteur does not offer sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt on the part of the Member concerned by that request as to possible bias against him or her and cannot, therefore, be regarded as impartial, in accordance with the standard established by the Parliament itself, exercising its broad discretion, as recalled in paragraph 97 of the present judgment. Such an appointment must be regarded as having been made in breach of Article 41(1) of the Charter.
...
115. It follows from the foregoing considerations that the legal classification of the facts made in paragraph 251 of the judgment under appeal is incorrect, in that the General Court held, on the basis, inter alia, of paragraph 246 of that judgment, itself vitiated by an error of law, and without duly taking into account the chronology of the background to the dispute, that the organisation, by the person subsequently appointed rapporteur, of the event of 6 March 2019 did not make that person unfit for appointment as rapporteur and could not therefore constitute an infringement of the requirement of impartiality within the meaning of Article 41(1) of the Charter.
...
121. The third plea in law in the action, divided into three parts, is based on an infringement of the right of the appellants to have their affairs handled impartially and fairly laid down in Article 41(1) of the Charter, read in conjunction with the second paragraph of Article 296 TFEU and Article 41(2)(c) of the Charter.
122. By the second part of the third plea in their action, the appellants submit that the Parliament infringed Article 41(1) and Article 39(2) of the Charter and infringed an essential procedural requirement by appointing a partial rapporteur.
...
126. In that regard, as has been recalled in paragraphs 86 and 87 of the present judgment, the right to good administration, enshrined in Article 41(1) of the Charter, provides that every person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly and within a reasonable time by the institutions, bodies, offices and agencies of the Union. That requirement of impartiality encompasses subjective impartiality and objective impartiality.
...
130. For the reasons set out in paragraphs 97 to 105 and 114 of the present judgment, it must be held that that rapporteur did not offer sufficient guarantees to exclude any legitimate doubt on the part of the appellants as to any unfavourable bias against them on his part and could not, therefore, be regarded as meeting the requirement of impartiality. The appointment of that rapporteur must therefore be regarded as having been made in breach of Article 41(1) of the Charter.
-
Paragraphs referring to EU Charter (original language)