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Election of Presidents in the Courts: Amendments to the Procedure

By Bartolus

There's recently been a slight amendment to the procedure for the election of the President of the Court and of the Presidents of Chambers. The change ends the privilege of age.

The relevant provision of the Rules of Procedure (Article 7 §3 for the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance, Article 6 §3 for the Civil Service Tribunal) provided, before system before amendment:

"The elections provided for in this Article shall be by secret ballot. If a Judge obtains an absolute majority he shall be elected. If no Judge obtains an absolute majority, a second ballot shall be held and the Judge obtaining the most votes shall be elected. Where two or more Judges obtain an equal number of votes the oldest of them shall be deemed elected."

Now, the amended provision reads:

"The elections provided for in this Article shall be by secret ballot. The Judge obtaining the votes of more than half the Judges composing the Court shall be elected. If no Judge obtains that majority, further ballots shall be held until that majority is attained."

You can find the amendment for the Court of Justice here, for the Court of First Instance here, and for the Civil Service Tribunal here.

Full post as published by EU Law Blog on February 04, 2009 (boomark / email).