Statystyki sądowe Trybunału Sprawiedliwości - 2024 r

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A brief overview of the main statistical trends in 2024 – An ‘extra’ordinary year

by Marc-André Gaudissart

Deputy Registrar of the Court of Justice

As is the case every year, I have the pleasure of putting pen to paper to comment briefly on the judicial statistics for the past year and to provide the reader with some keys to reading and understanding the data relating to the cases brought before, and closed by, the Court of Justice.

While this is not always an easy exercise as the variations from one year to the next are sometimes scarcely significant and do not therefore always allow light to be shed on the notable developments or recurring trends to be detected, 2024 is clearly the exception to the rule. In many respects, the past year may indeed be classed as an extraordinary year, in the original meaning of the word, both in terms of the number of cases brought before the Court of Justice in 2024 and the number of cases closed by it. Both figures call to mind the historic heights reached in 2019 and give real meaning to the legislative reform which entered into force on 1 September 2024 and led to the Court of Justice sharing its jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings with the General Court, which from now on has exclusive jurisdiction to answer questions referred by the courts and tribunals of the EU Member States in the specific areas referred to in Article 50b of the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union (‘the Statute’). [1]

1.    Cases brought

Turning, first of all, to cases brought before the Court of Justice in 2024, a total of 920 cases were brought. This is not the highest number in the Court’s history – the record having been achieved five years earlier, with 966 new cases in 2019 – but all the same that figure represents a 12% increase on the previous year (821 new cases in 2023) and does not include the some 20 requests for a preliminary ruling which were lodged at the Registry of the Court of Justice after 1 October 2024 and transmitted to the General Court following the preliminary analysis provided for in Article 93a of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice. Without the abovementioned reform, the number of cases destined for the Court of Justice in 2024 would therefore have been even higher.

Unsurprisingly, requests for a preliminary ruling still accounted for the lion’s share of the cases brought before the Court in 2024, with no fewer than 573 new requests for a preliminary ruling (compared with 518 in 2023). However, it should also be noted that there was an increase in the proportion of appeals in the litigation before the Court, as the number of appeals, appeals on interim measures and appeals on intervention brought in 2024 came to 277, a figure higher than the number of appeals entered in the Register in 2023 (231) and also higher than the ceiling reached in 2019 (with 266 new appeals brought that year). The reason for that increase lies in the General Court’s adoption of a good many decisions terminating the case in proceedings between several dozen banking institutions and the Single Resolution Board. Following the annulment by the General Court of the decisions of that body on the calculation of the ex ante contributions to the Single Resolution Fund, the Single Resolution Board, the Council of the European Union and the banks contested the General Court’s decisions. No fewer than 76 appeals were thus lodged before the Court of Justice. Since the subject matter of those cases is essentially identical and the pleas in law relied on by the applicants overlap to a very large extent, the Court, in the interest of the proper administration of justice, identified certain ‘pilot’ cases and, with the agreement of the parties concerned, decided to suspend the handling of the other cases pending the future decisions in the pilot cases.

Unlike references for a preliminary ruling and appeals, direct actions saw a slight drop in 2024 as compared with the previous year (53 new cases, compared with 60 in 2023), but I would draw attention to the first action brought on the basis of the first paragraph of Article 8 of Protocol (No 2) on the application of the principles of subsidiarity and proportionality, which was submitted on behalf of the National Assembly of the French Republic by the Government of that State, [2] as well as to two actions for failure to fulfil obligations brought by the Commission against the United Kingdom on the basis of Article 87(1) of the Agreement on the withdrawal of that State from the European Union and from the European Atomic Energy Community. Lodged on 20 December 2024, that is, only a few days before the expiry of the four-year period provided for in the abovementioned article of the Withdrawal Agreement, those actions seek a declaration, first, that the United Kingdom failed to fulfil obligations under Articles 45 and 49 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union and in a number of articles of Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States [3] [4] and, second, that that State failed to fulfil its obligations under a number of provisions of the Treaties, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union and general legal principles, by having failed to give full effect to the judgment of the Court in Achmea [5] and failed to terminate the bilateral investment treaties between the United Kingdom and EU Member States. [6]

Alongside a few applications for legal aid or for taxation of costs, I note, finally, the request for an Opinion lodged by the Commission on 13 September 2024 concerning the (exclusive or shared) nature of the competence of the European Union to conclude the Agreement on Air Transport between the Sultanate of Oman, on the one hand, and the European Union and its Member States, on the other. Submitted under Article 218(11) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, this request sparked very keen interest since, with one exception, every EU Member State in addition to the European Parliament and the Council submitted written observations on the question put by the Commission.

Closer examination of the subject matter of the cases submitted to the Court over the past year reveals that, generally speaking, that subject matter mirrors that of previous years. As in the past, the Court was seised, in 2024, of many cases relating to competition or State aid, the protection of consumers and the environment or social or transport policy, However, what will prove undoubtedly more eye-catching to the reader is the high number of cases concerning economic and monetary policy or the restrictive measures adopted in the context of the war in Ukraine, as well as the number of cases falling within the scope of the area of freedom, security and justice. No fewer than 123 cases, including 117 requests for a preliminary ruling, were brought before the Court in that field in 2024, that is, 40 more cases than in the previous year. A good many of them came from Italy.

Analysis of the geographic origin of the requests for a preliminary ruling made to the Court in 2024 provides, in that regard, a wealth of further information. Whereas the number of references made by Italian courts and tribunals had declined markedly in 2023, their number literally exploded in 2024: Italian courts submitted almost one hundred requests for a preliminary ruling to the Court in 2024 (98, compared with just 43 in 2023), the highest number of references from that State since 1952. By contrast, the number of references made by German courts and tribunals went in the opposite direction, as at just 66 the number of requests from the courts and tribunals of that State was the lowest number in the past 15 years – it still stood at 94 requests in 2023 and 140 requests three years earlier (2020) – whereas the number of references made by Polish courts and tribunals remained stable, 47 requests having been made to the Court in 2024 (compared with 48 in the previous year). They are followed, when placed in order, by the Austrian, Bulgarian and Belgian courts with, respectively, 39, 38 and 36 requests for a preliminary ruling. Furthermore, in that context, I note with interest that of the 36 requests submitted by Belgian courts, no fewer than five come from the Constitutional Court of that State. The questions referred by that court concern matters as diverse as the protection of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector, the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society and the validity of the measures adopted by the Council of the European Union to address the high energy prices, against the backdrop of a more than uncertain geopolitical context.

With regard, lastly, to urgent litigation, there was a surge in the number of applications for the expedited procedure or the urgent procedure. Whereas there had been a marked decline in the number of such applications in the two preceding years (with, respectively, 52 applications in 2022 and 43 applications in 2023), that figure rose again in 2024 with more than 75 applications, all types of cases combined. The urgent procedure was triggered on six occasions over the past year, as was the expedited procedure, which was likewise applied in six cases concerning, respectively, the interpretation of the provisions on the system for the surrender of persons for criminal prosecution in the context of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union and the European Atomic Energy Community, on the one hand, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, on the other, [7] the interpretation of the provisions on the minimum standards for giving temporary protection in the event of a mass influx of displaced persons [8] and the interpretation of the concept of a ‘safe country of origin’ as contained, inter alia, in Articles 36, 37 and 38 of, and in Annex I to, Directive 2013/32/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 June 2013 on common procedures for granting and withdrawing international protection (OJ 2013 L 180, p. 60). [9]

2.    Closed cases

While the past year is reminiscent in many respects of 2019 as far as concerns the number of cases brought before the Court, that observation is even more accurate in relation to the cases closed by the Court. In 2024, the Court closed 863 cases, an almost identical number to the record number of cases closed five years earlier (865 cases). That figure, which represents a 10% increase compared with the previous year during which 783 cases had been closed, reflects the Court’s constant efforts to manage its (ever-increasing) workload in a context marked, moreover, by the departure of one Member in February 2024 and the death of another Member in office four months later. At the time of writing, those two Members had not yet been replaced, therefore obliging a Court with an intended composition of 27 Judges to function with only 25 Judges.

Mirroring the proportion of cases brought before the Court for which they account, references for a preliminary ruling and appeals represent, unsurprisingly, the bulk of the cases closed by the Court. A closer look at the way in which cases are closed over the past year reveals that the Court closed a higher number of cases by means of a judgment. 595 cases were thus disposed of in that way in 2024, compared with a figure of 535 one year earlier. By contrast, the number of cases disposed of by means of an order saw a slight decrease, both in the case of preliminary ruling cases and appeals. Appeals settled by means of an order represented just 40% of all appeals closed in 2024, compared with a percentage of over 50% one year earlier and 60% in 2022! That factor inevitably has an impact on the average duration of proceedings.

As the Court settled a high number of appeals in the previous year, in particular in the fields of competition and State aid, at the end of a procedure involving both the holding of a hearing and the delivery of an Advocate General’s Opinion, the average time taken to deal with such cases rose from 13.9 months in 2023 to 18.4 months in 2024.

An increase in the average time taken to deal with references for a preliminary ruling and direct actions can also be observed, but those increases are on a smaller scale than that for appeals. The average time taken to deal with requests for a preliminary ruling rose from 16.8 months in 2023 to 17.2 months in 2024, whilst the time taken to deal with direct actions over the same period went from 20.8 months to 21.5 months, which remains within reasonable limits given the fact that the Court closed a high number of cases which had been pending for a number of years and, in particular, the actions brought by several Member States in October 2020 against the rules adopted by the EU legislature in terms of establishment and cabotage, maximum driving times and the posting of drivers in the road transport sector. The judgment given by the Court on 4 October 2024 rules jointly on fifteen actions and on its own contains almost 1 500 paragraphs. [10]

The combination of those factors logically entails an increase in the average length of proceedings before the Court which, all types of case combined, stood at 17.7 months in 2024, compared with 16.1 months one year earlier. By contrast, as regards cases dealt with under the urgent procedure, which always require enhanced vigilance given the sensitive areas which they cover, the average time taken to deal with them fell from 4.3 months in 2023 to 3.3 months in 2024, which is very close to the duration mentioned when that procedure was established in March 2008. [11]

As for the breakdown of decisions given by formation of the Court, the key point to note is the significant increase in the number of decisions given by the Grand Chamber of the Court. In 2024, 75 cases were closed by that formation of the Court, compared with just 36 cases one year earlier. That figure can be explained, as we have seen, by the disposal of a group of 15 related cases concerning European legislation in the field of transport, as well as by the partial replacement of the composition of the Court in October 2024. As the term of office of a significant number of judges came to an end in October 2024, rulings had to be given in the cases in which those judges were sitting before their departure so as to avoid quorum-related issues. A considerable number of those cases had been referred before the Grand Chamber.

Although cases closed by the Court in 2024 by three-judge Chambers continued to account for the bulk of closed cases because they represented no fewer than 46% of the cases closed by means of a judgment or an order involving a judicial determination, the proportion accounted for by five-judge Chambers has however continued to grow and stood at almost 42%. The total number of cases closed by those formations of the Court in 2024 stood, respectively, at 359 cases for three-judge Chambers – including the Chamber which determines whether appeals are allowed to proceed – and 324 cases for five-judge Chambers. One year earlier, those figures were, respectively, 381 cases (three-judge Chambers) and 298 cases (five-judge Chambers).

Lastly, it should be noted that, in 2024, the Court gave a decision in its highest-ranking formation (the Full Court): the judgment of 30 April 2024 in the second ‘Quadrature du Net’ case. A further reference having been made to it by the French Council of State, the Court was prompted to provide a number of additional and significant clarifications concerning the interpretation of Directive 2002/58/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 July 2002 concerning the processing of personal data and the protection of privacy in the electronic communications sector (Directive on privacy and electronic communications), as amended by Directive 2009/136/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2009, read in the light of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. [12]

3.    Pending cases

Although, as we have seen, an exceptionally high number of cases were closed by the Court in 2024, that number does, however, remain lower than the number of cases brought in the course of that same year, which logically entails an increase in the number of cases pending before the Court; there were 1 206 pending cases as of 31 December 2024. This is the highest number ever recorded in the Court’s history. It unquestionably shows the trust that the citizens and the courts of the EU Member States have in the Court to resolve questions of interpretation of EU law with which they are faced, but also highlights the overall significance of the legislative reform which entered into force in September 2024, since that reform seeks to rebalance the workload between the Court of Justice and the General Court by transferring to the latter some of the Court of Justice’s jurisdiction to give preliminary rulings.

It is clearly premature, at this stage, to take stock of that reform, but I will be closely following the evolution of the number of cases brought before the Court, in particular in the specific areas covered by the transfer of that jurisdiction, so as to assess the impact of that reform, both on the General Court’s handling of the cases concerned and on the workload of the Court of Justice as well as the time taken to deal with cases, which was one of the factors that prompted the request for amendment of the Statute.

[1] As a reminder, the six areas in question are as follows: (1) the common system of value added tax, (2) excise duties, (3) the Customs Code, (4) the tariff classification of goods under the Combined Nomenclature, (5) the compensation and assistance of passengers in the event of denied boarding or of delay or cancellation of transport services, and (6) the system for greenhouse gas emission allowance trading.

[2] Case C‑553/24, Assemblée nationale v European Parliament and Council. This action seeks the annulment of Regulation (EU) 2024/1351 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 May 2024 on asylum and immigration management, amending Regulations (EU) 2021/1147 and (EU) 2021/1060 and repealing Regulation (EU) No 604/2013 (OJ L 2024/1351, 22.5.24).

[3] OJ L 158, 30.4.2004, p. 77.

[4] Case C‑892/24, Commission v United Kingdom.

[5] Judgment of 6 March 2018, Achmea, C‑284/16 (EU:C:2018:158).

[6] Case C‑894/24, Commission v United Kingdom.

[7] Cases C‑202/24, Alchaster (judgment of 29 July 2024, EU:C:2024:649) and C‑743/24, Alchaster II.

[8] Joined Cases C‑244/24 and C‑290/24, Kaduna (judgment of 19 December 2024, EU:C:2024:1038).

[9] Joined Cases C‑758/24 and C‑759/24, Alace and Canpelli.

[10] Joined Cases C‑541/20 to C‑555/20, Lithuania and Others v Parliament and Council (Mobility package), EU:C:2024:818.

[11] See, in this regard, the statement made by the Council, on 20 December 2007, on the fringes of the adoption of its decision amending the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice, according to which ‘the urgent preliminary procedure should be concluded within three months’ (OJ L 24, 29.1.2008, p. 44).

[12] Case C‑470/21, La Quadrature du Net and Others (Personal data and action to combat counterfeiting), EU:C:2024:370.

See also

Statistics of judicial activity in a number of previous years can also be consulted on the Curia website in the ‘History' section.