International Law

Appointments to the Court of Justice in October 2009

By Bartolus

According to a recent, publicly accessible letter from the President of the Court of Justice, the term of office of thirteen judges and four advocates general expires on October 6th 2009. Now that is a lot of members of the Court.

As the President of the Court points out the scheduling of cases in the coming year has to take into account the quorum and composition of the bench: cases cannot be assigned to judges and advocates general who will leave the court.

As a result, the President of the Court, addressing the President of the Council, asks two things. First he asks that decisions on appointments be taken as early as possible, in order to facilitate the case assignment process. Second - and this is the interesting part - he asks that "consideration [...] be given to the stability of the composition of the Court". That means he is pleading for the renewed appointment of as many members as possible.

A list of the names of the members whose term of office expires on October 6th 2009 is annexed to the letter.

Full post as published by EU Law Blog on October 09, 2008 (boomark / email).