e-Curia

e-Curia button version2

 

e-Curia is an application of the Court of Justice of the European Union that enables the representatives of parties in cases brought before the Court of Justice and the General Court, as well as national courts and tribunals in the context of a reference to the Court of Justice for a preliminary ruling, to exchange procedural documents with the Registries by exclusively electronic means.

 

Decision of the Court of Justice of 16 October 2018 on the lodging and service of procedural documents by means of e-Curia

Decision of the General Court of 11 July 2018 on the lodging and service of procedural documents by means of e-Curia

Conditions of Use of e-Curia

User Guide 

   

Requesting an account

In order to use e-Curia, a request to open an account must be submitted using an account request form.

The procedure for opening an account varies depending on whether the user follows the standard procedure or the special procedure.

The standard procedure enables an account to be opened in order for procedural documents to be exchanged with the Court of Justice or the General Court. It is available to a party’s representative (‘representative’ account), or, in the context of a request for a preliminary ruling before the Court of Justice, to a person acting on behalf of a court or tribunal of a Member State (‘court’ account) or to a person who does not have the status of agent or lawyer but who, under national procedural rules, is authorised to represent a party before the courts of his Member State (‘authorised person’ account). It takes several days to process the request and you will be informed by email of its progress.

The special procedure is intended for urgent situations and enables an account to be opened provisionally in order for procedural documents to be lodged with the General Court only.

Use of the e-Curia application is free of charge.

Use of the e-Curia application is mandatory in the General Court.

 

 

Summary table of the accounts through which procedural documents may be lodged with a court of the Court of Justice of the European Union using the standard procedure or the special procedure

 

 

Standard procedure

(Request to open an account)

Special procedure

(Provisional opening of an account for immediate lodging of procedural documents)

Capacity

Court of Justice

General Court

Court of Justice

General Court

Representative:
- Lawyer
- Agent
- University teacher

Yes

Yes

No

Yes

Person who does not have the status of agent or lawyer but who, under national procedural rules, is nevertheless authorised to represent a party before the court or tribunal of a Member State in preliminary ruling proceedings

Yes

No

No

No

Person acting on behalf of a court or tribunal of a Member State in preliminary ruling proceedings

Yes

No

No

No

 

 

Lodging procedural documents

Procedural documents must be lodged in PDF format. Files lodged may not exceed 30 MB. Documents lodged do not need to be signed by hand. A user can thus simply generate a PDF document using his word-processing software. If necessary, the user can also attach annexes and/or additional documents to his procedural document. As soon as the documents to be sent are validated, the lodging of those documents is recorded by e-Curia and a confirmatory email is sent to the user. It is not necessary, therefore, to send the original document by post or to send certified copies.

 

Accepting service

When the Registry serves a procedural document by means of e-Curia, an email is sent to the intended recipient to notify him of this and the document served is available for him to consult in e-Curia. The Registry is alerted as soon as a document served has been consulted. Alternatively, service is deemed to have been accepted 7 days after the notification email is sent.

 

Consulting the history of documents lodged and served

Users may, at any time, consult the history of documents served on them and the history of documents they themselves have lodged. A search form allows users to sort the documents served and the documents they have lodged.

 

Organising personal details and registering assistants

A user can change his password, email address or the display language for his profile. If the user ID or password are forgotten, there is a procedure for recovering them. A representative of a party and a person acting on behalf of a court or tribunal may also register one or more assistants who can receive procedural documents transmitted by the Registries. The assistant can also prepare a document for lodging, which will then have to be validated by the representative or the person acting on behalf of a court or tribunal.