ORDER OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

20 June 2011

Case T‑256/10 P

Luigi Marcuccio

v

European Commission

(Appeal — Civil service — Officials — Removal of personal effects — Implied and express rejection of the appellant’s request — Duty to state reasons — Appeal in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly unfounded)

Appeal:      brought against the order of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (First Chamber) of 25 March 2010 in Case F‑102/08 Marcuccio v Commission, seeking the annulment of that order.

Held:      The appeal is dismissed. Mr Luigi Marcuccio is ordered to bear his own costs and to pay those incurred by the European Commission in the present proceedings.

Summary

1.      Appeals — Pleas in law — Inadequate or contradictory grounds — Admissibility — Scope of the obligation to state reasons — Extent of the Court’s review of judgments of the Civil Service Tribunal

(Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 76)

2.      Appeals — Pleas in law — Incorrect assessment of the facts and evidence — Inadmissibility — Court’s review of the assessment of the facts and evidence — Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted

(Art. 257 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 11(1))

3.      Appeals — Pleas in law — Error of law relied on not identified — Manifest inadmissibility

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Annexe I, Art. 11; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 138(1), first subpara., under c))

4.      Actions for annulment — Jurisdiction of the Union judicature — Heads of claim seeking a direction addressed to an institution — Heads of claim seeking a declaratory judgment — Inadmissibility

(Art. 263 TFEU)

1.      The question whether the grounds of a judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal are contradictory or inadequate is a question of law which is amenable, as such, to judicial review on appeal.

The question of compliance with the obligation to provide a statement of reasons, laid down in Article 76 of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal in respect of an order dismissing an action as manifestly inadmissible or as lacking any foundation in law, must be distinguished from the question of the validity of the statement of reasons, which concerns the substantive legality of the order. The reasoning of a decision consists in a formal statement of the grounds on which that decision is based. If those grounds are vitiated by errors, the latter will vitiate the substantive legality of the decision, but not the statement of reasons in it, which may be adequate even though it sets out reasons which are incorrect. The fact that the court of first instance reached a different conclusion on the substance from that of the applicant does not, in itself, vitiate the contested order by a failure to state the grounds on which it is based.

(see paras 23, 25-26)

See: judgment of 11 January 2007 in C‑404/04 P Technische Glaswerke Ilmenau v Commission, not published in the ECR, para. 90 and the case-law cited therein; C‑413/06 P Bertelsmann and Sony Corporation of America v Impala [2008] ECR I‑4951, para. 181 and the case-law cited therein; C‑583/08 P Gogos v Commission [2010] ECR I‑4469, para. 35 and the case-law cited therein; T‑516/09 P Marcuccio v Commission, paras 53 and 54

2.      An appeal must be based solely on pleas relating to the infringement of rules of law, excluding any assessment of the facts. The Civil Service Tribunal has exclusive jurisdiction to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it, and to assess those facts and the value to be attributed to the evidence produced before it, save where the clear sense of those facts or evidence has been distorted. Furthermore, the Civil Service Tribunal is the sole judge of any need to supplement the information available to it concerning the cases before it.

However, when the Civil Service Tribunal has established or assessed the facts, the General Court has jurisdiction under Article 257 TFEU to review the legal characterisation of those facts and the inferences in law which the Civil Service Tribunal has drawn from them. The jurisdiction of the General Court to review the findings of fact by the Civil Service Tribunal therefore extends, inter alia, to the substantive inaccuracy of those findings as apparent from the documents in the file, the distortion of the evidence, the legal characterisation of that evidence and the question whether the rules relating to the burden of proof and the taking of evidence have been observed.

(see paras 33, 35, 36, 38)

See: C‑315/99 P Ismeri Europa v Court of Auditors [2001] ECR I‑5281, para. 19; C‑488/01 P Martinez v Parliament [2003] ECR I‑13355, para. 53 and the case-law cited therein; C‑403/04 P and C‑405/04 P Sumitomo Metal Industries and Nippon Steel v Commission [2007] ECR I‑729, para. 39 and the case-law cited therein; T‑278/07 P Marcuccio v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I‑B‑1-59 and II‑B‑1-407, para. 20; order of 8 July 2010 in T‑166/09 P Marcuccio v Commission, para. 20 and the case-law cited therein

3.      Under Article 11 of Annex I to the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 138(1), first subparagraph, under (c) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside, and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal. An appeal which does not include any legal argument showing how the Civil Service Tribunal allegedly committed an error in law, but merely reproduces the plea submitted to the Tribunal at first instance without providing further clarification, must therefore be dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. Such an argument merely constitutes a request to have the action brought at first instance re-examined, in breach of the rules imposed by both the Statute of the Court of Justice and the Rules of Procedure of the General Court.

(see paras 51-53)

See: C‑234/06 P Il Ponte Finanziaria v OHIM [2007] ECR I‑7333, paras 45 and 46; judgment of 19 March 2010 in T‑338/07 P Bianchi v ETF, para. 59; judgment of 16 December 2010 in T‑52/10 P Lebedef v Commission, para. 36 and the case-law cited therein

4.      The Union judicature has no jurisdiction when exercising judicial review of legality under Article 230 EC to issue declaratory judgments or directions, whatever the nature or content of the contested measure. An argument which contends that the Union judicature’s inability to address directions to an institution should be limited to cases where the institution has decision-making powers is therefore not such as to call that finding into question.

(see paras 27, 66)

See: C‑353/01 P Mattila v Council and Commission [2004] ECR I‑1073, para. 15; T‑145/06 Omya v Commission [2009] ECR II‑145, para. 23 and the case-law cited therein