ORDER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL
(Second Chamber)

28 April 2015

Case F‑33/14

Luigi Marcuccio

v

European Commission

(Article 34(1) and (2) 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 Z is excluded from the proceedings in accordance with Article 34(1) and (2) of the Rules of Procedure. A copy of this order is to be sent to the competent Italian Bar, of which Mr Z is a Member.

Summary

1.      Judicial proceedings — Representation of the parties — Exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s representative — Absence of comments from the representative after being informed of the initiation of the exclusion procedure — No effect

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 34(1) and (2))

2.      Judicial proceedings — Representation of the parties — Exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s representative — Party’s lawyer having fruitlessly and persistently added to the workload of the Union’s courts

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 34(1) and (2))

1.      The absence of a reply from a party’s lawyer before the European Union courts to a letter from the Civil Service Tribunal informing him of its intention to make use of Article 34(1) and (2) of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure cannot prevent those provisions, concerning the exclusion from the proceedings of a party’s lawyer, from being applied to him. Where a lawyer is being excluded because he is helping to perpetuate his client’s conduct in fruitlessly adding to the workload of the EU courts, the absence of a reply from the lawyer concerned in no way calls into question the fact that his client’s propensity to opt automatically and indiscriminately for litigation is such as to adversely affect the proper administration of justice, nor the fact that the lawyer’s conduct directly aids in perpetuating the querulous attitude complained of against his client.

(see para. 13)

2.      Article 34(1) and (2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal are to be applied by excluding a party’s lawyer before the European Union courts from the proceedings and by sending a copy of the exclusion order to the competent national Bar of which he is a member where there is sufficient evidence that, by his conduct, the lawyer has indiscriminately encouraged his client in his querulous attitude, which, in view of the particularly large number of actions which that client has brought before the three 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 that connection, the fact that the lawyer concerned brought only two cases, under his signature and on behalf of his client, before the Civil Service Tribunal is not, given the history of litigation brought by his predecessors, of which he must have been aware, such as to legitimise his conduct as a lawyer, which should consist in assisting and representing his client while still having regard for the need for the proper administration of justice as a matter of public interest.

(see paras 14, 21, 22)