Court of Justice in Europe

Content about Court Of Justice from the publication “The ABC of European Union law” (2010, European Union) by Klaus-Dieter Borchardt.

The Court of Justice currently consists of 27 judges and eight Advocates General, who are appointed ‘by common accord of the Governments of the Member States’ for a term of six years. Each Member State sends one judge. In order to ensure a degree of continuity, partial replacement of half the judges and Advocates General takes place every three years at the beginning of the judicial year on 6 October. They may be reappointed.

Context of Court Of Justice in the European Union

The Court is assisted by eight Advocates General, whose term of office corresponds to that of the judges; they enjoy judicial independence. Four of the eight Advocates General are always from the ‘large’ Member States (Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom) and the other four come from the remaining 23 Member States on an alternating basis. The office of Advocate General is based on that of the Commissaire du gouvernement in the Council of State (Conseil d’État) and administrative courts in France. It must not be confused with the position of public prosecutor or similar post found in many countries. Advocates General were introduced in the Court to counterbalance the original ‘single-tier’ nature of court proceedings, i.e. the absence of any appeal procedures. Their task is to submit ‘opinions’ to the Court in the form of (non-binding) proposals for a Court decision based on a fully independent and non-partisan survey of the questions of law raised in the case concerned. The opinions are an integral part of the oral procedure and are published together with the judgment in the Court Reports. Advocates General can only influence the judgment through the strength of the arguments in their opinions; they are not involved in any deliberations or voting on the judgment.