ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
16 July 2009 (*)
(Legal aid)
In Case T‑205/09 AJ,
George Francis Alex Dalli, residing at St. Paul’s Bay (Malta),
applicant,
v
European Parliament
and
Commission of the European Communities, represented by H. Kraemer and B. Schima, acting as Agents,
defendants,
APPLICATION for legal aid pursuant to Article 95 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES
makes the following
Order
1 By application received at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 14 May 2009, Mr G.F.A. Dalli requests that he be granted legal aid prior to bringing an action before the Court in respect of an alleged infringement of his intellectual property rights which, he claims, results from disclosure of his wind turbine innovation project to the general public by the Commission and the European Parliament.
2 Under Article 94(3) of the Rules of Procedure, legal aid may be granted only on condition that the action in respect of which the application is made does not appear to be manifestly inadmissible or manifestly unfounded.
3 The defendants were invited to submit their written observations on the application for legal aid pursuant to Article 96(1) of the Rules of Procedure.
4 The Commission submitted its observations on 29 June 2009, whilst the European Parliament allowed the period given to expire without expressing a view.
5 In its observations, the Commission contends that Mr Dalli’s application for legal aid should be refused as being manifestly unfounded.
6 In that regard, it must be observed, first of all, that the present application for legal aid does not indicate in a coherent and comprehensible manner what the substance of the proposed action might be.
7 In any event, Mr Dalli appears to wish to place on record the infringement of his intellectual property right and of his right to privacy allegedly committed by the authorities in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in conjunction with the Commission, even though he designates as defendants the Commission and the Parliament.
8 So far as concerns the alleged infringement committed by the United Kingdom authorities, however, it must be stated that the Court manifestly lacks jurisdiction to deal with an action challenging the conduct or acts of national authorities.
9 Furthermore, in merely seeking an ‘equitable judicial remedy’, Mr Dalli provides no other explanation as to the nature of the proposed action.
10 Even if it were to be assumed that Mr Dalli intends to bring an action for damages seeking to establish the non-contractual liability of the Community by reason of the conduct of the Commission and the Parliament, he provides no indication, on his legal aid application form, as to the existence in this case of the conditions required for the purpose of bringing such an action.
11 In that regard, it must be noted that, according to settled case-law, the Community’s non-contractual liability depends on the coincidence of a set of conditions as regards the unlawfulness of the acts alleged against the Community institutions, the fact of damage and the existence of a causal link between the conduct of the institution and the damage complained of. The cumulative nature of those conditions means that, if one of them is not satisfied, the Community cannot incur non-contractual liability (see Case C‑122/01 P T. Port v Commission [2003] ECR I‑4261, paragraph 30 and the case-law cited).
12 In the present case, Mr Dalli does not provide any information pointing to the existence of unlawful conduct attributable to the Community institutions, nor does he mention actual damage or a direct causal link between such damage and the alleged conduct of the Commission and the Parliament.
13 Thus, as the action in respect of which legal aid is sought appears, on the basis of the information available to the Court, to be manifestly unfounded, the present application must be refused, in accordance with Article 94(3) of the Rules of Procedure.
On those grounds,
THE PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE
hereby orders:
The application for legal aid in Case T-205/09 AJ is refused.
Done at Luxembourg, 16 July 2009.