Presentation of the European Court Reports

In accordance with the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice and the General Court, Reports of Cases are published in the official languages of the European Union. The Reports are an official publication of the case-law of the jurisdictions which form the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Composition of the Reports

Until 1 September 2016, when the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Tribunal was transferred to the General Court, the European Court Reports were composed of general Court Reports, setting out the case-law of the Court of Justice and the General Court, and Reports of Staff Cases, setting out the civil service case-law of the General Court and the Civil Service Tribunal.

Since 1 September 2016, the case-law (including decisions concerning civil service matters delivered by the General Court and the Court of Justice) has been published only in the general Court Reports.

Format of the Reports

The general Court Reports and the Reports of Staff Cases were published in paper format until 2011 and 2009 respectively. For the period prior to those dates, the paper version of the Reports is the only official publication. It is still available at the Office of Publications. A pdf version of the decisions published in the Reports is also available on EUR-Lex.

From 1 January 2012 (general Court Reports) and 1 January 2010 (Reports of Staff Cases) respectively, the Reports have been published exclusively in digital format on the EUR-Lex site (official publications accessible free of charge). Access to the Reports published on EUR-Lex is also available on this site (Curia).

The digital Reports comprise a set of judicial decisions, accompanied, as appropriate, by the Opinion of the Advocate General, in pdf format. Certain other information is also provided, as are html versions with hypertext links, in order to facilitate consultation of these documents. That information does not form part of the digital Court Reports and is not official.

Access to the Reports on the Curia site

The page giving access to the Reports displays documents grouped by case in the chronological order of decisions.

The and icons in the chronological table contain links to the official text and the documentary notice in EUR-Lex respectively.

A greyed icon means that the official document is not yet available in the language of consultation.

The chronological table also contains information on any appeals, reviews or corrigenda and links to the Curia database in order to facilitate consultation.

Criteria for publication of case-law in the Reports

For the Court of Justice and the General Court, the criteria for publication in the digital Reports are the same as those that applied to the Reports published in paper format.

Court of Justice

Since 1 May 2004, the following have thus been published in the Reports:

• judgments of the full Court and of the Grand Chamber;
• judgments delivered in preliminary ruling proceedings by Chambers of five Judges and Chambers of three Judges;
• judgments delivered other than in preliminary ruling proceedings by Chambers of five Judges and Chambers of three Judges, ruling with an Advocate General’s Opinion; and
• Opinions delivered pursuant to Article 218(11) TFEU.

Unless decided otherwise by the formation of the Court concerned, the following are thus, as a rule, no longer published in the Reports:

• judgments delivered other than in preliminary ruling proceedings by Chambers of three or five Judges ruling without an Advocate General’s Opinion; and
• orders.

It has also been possible, since September 2011, for Chambers of three or five Judges to decide, exceptionally, not to publish a preliminary ruling in the Reports.

General Court

From September 2005, unless decided otherwise by the formation of the Court concerned, the following have been published in the Reports:

• judgments of the Grand Chamber;
• judgments of Chambers of five Judges.

The formation of the Court concerned decides on the publication of judgments of Chambers of three Judges on a case-by-case basis.

Judgments of the General Court ruling by a single Judge and orders involving a judicial determination are not published in the Reports, unless decided otherwise.

Certain decisions may be published in the form of extracts.

Information on decisions not published in the Reports

Decisions which, by virtue of the rules set out above, are not published in the Reports are nevertheless accessible under the ‘Case-law' section of this site in the languages available, that is to say, in the language of the case and in the language of the deliberation.

The general Court Reports also contain certain information concerning those decisions.

Reports of Staff Cases

General Court

Until 31 August 2016, decisions of the General Court delivered on appeal in the field of civil service law were published in the Reports of Staff Cases in summary form in all the official languages, and in full in the language of the case. In some cases they were also published in the general Court Reports in all the official languages.

Since 1 September 2016, decisions of the General Court in relation to civil service disputes have been published in the general Court Reports, in accordance with the criteria set out above.

Civil Service Tribunal

Until 31 August 2016, decisions of the Civil Service Tribunal were published in the Reports of Staff Cases in summary form in all the official languages, and in full in the language of the case and in the language of the deliberation.

In the case of decisions of general interest, the full text was also published in the other official languages.

Official languages

The following are the official languages of the European Union:

Temporary derogating measures have been laid down for Maltese (until 30 April 2007) and Irish (until 31 December 2021) by Council Regulations (EC) No 930/2004 and No 1738/2006 and Council Regulations No 920/2005 and No 2015/2264 respectively.