Action brought on 28 October 2010 - Viktor Uspaskich v European Parliament

(Case T-507/10)

Language of the case: Lithuanian

Parties

Applicant: Viktor Uspaskich (Kėdainiai, Lithuania) (represented by Vytautas Sviderskis, lawyer, and Stanislovas Tomas, legal consultant)

Defendant: European Parliament

Form of order sought

Annul the Decision of the European Parliament of 7 September 2010 No P7_TA(2010)0296 on the request for waiver of the immunity of Viktor Uspaskich;

Order the defendant to pay EUR 10 000 for the non-material damage suffered;

Order the defendant to pay the costs of the proceedings.

Pleas in law and main arguments

The applicant bases his application on four pleas in law.

First of all, the applicant submits that the defendant infringed his rights of defence and the principle of good administration in procedure 2009/2147 (IMM). The European Parliament refused to hear the applicant during the procedure for waiver of his immunity both in the Committee on Legal Affairs and during the plenary session. It failed to take account of the majority of the applicant's arguments and did not answer any of them.

Second, the European Parliament adopted the contested decision on an incorrect legal basis and infringed point (a) of the first paragraph of Article 9 of the Protocol on the Privileges and Immunities of the European Union because it relied on a clearly incorrect interpretation of the first and second paragraphs of Article 62 of the Lithuanian Constitution. The applicant refers to the judgment of the General Court of 19 March 2010 in Case T-42/06 Gollnisch v Parliament, in which the Court held that there had been an analogous infringement by the European Parliament.

Third, the defendant failed to observe the fumus persecutionis principle and committed a manifest error of assessment when considering it. The defendant entirely disregarded its previous decisions regarding fumus persecutionis. The European Parliament failed, moreover, to take into account the fact that at the time of the decision to bring a criminal prosecution a political leader was not responsible for infringements connected with administration, and that material from the preliminary investigation had been published.

Fourth, the defendant infringed the applicant's right to submit a request to defend his immunity in accordance with Rule 6(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament. It refused to examine the applicant's request that it defend his immunity on the ground that the measure requiring him to pay a security of EUR 436 000 is disproportionate to the potential maximum fine for the criminal offence with which he is charged.

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