ORDER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

22 May 2014

Case F‑89/13

Luigi Marcuccio

v

European Commission

(Article 32(1) of the Rules of Procedure — Adverse effect on the proper administration of justice — Exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s representative)

Application:      under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof.

Held:      Mr A is excluded from the proceedings in accordance with Article 32(1) of the Rules of Procedure. A copy of this order is to be sent to the competent Spanish and Italian Bars, of which Mr A is a Member.

Summary

Judicial proceedings — Representation of the parties — Exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s representative

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 32(1))

The conduct of a lawyer representing a party before the Courts of the European Union, which consists of bringing actions on the basis of similar facts to those having led to earlier actions dismissed as manifestly unfounded or manifestly inadmissible, or relying on the same pleas in law indicative of the party’s propensity to resort to legal proceedings automatically and indiscriminately, may be regarded as incompatible with the requirements of the proper administration of justice.

That is true where, by such conduct, the lawyer indiscriminately encourages the party concerned in his querulous attitude, which, in view of the particularly large number of actions he has brought before the Courts of the Union — of which a lawyer exercising ordinary care must have been aware — has proved to be especially prejudicial to the proper administration of justice.

In particular, because the applications in the earlier cases were submitted under the signature of the previous lawyer, the applicant’s representative simply copied out whole sections of his predecessor’s submissions and thus did not fulfil his role as adviser by preventing the applicant from bringing repetitive and redundant actions.

In those circumstances, it is appropriate to apply Article 32(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal by excluding the legal representative from the proceedings. That exclusion requires the party concerned to change his legal representative, but it has no effect on the Civil Service Tribunal’s assessment of the substance of the action, which remains before it unless the party withdraws.

(see paras 12, 19, 20, 24 and 26)