Case T-236/06

Landtag Schleswig-Holstein

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Actions for annulment – Access to documents – Regional parliament – Lack of capacity to be a party to legal proceedings – Inadmissibility)

Summary of the Order

Actions for annulment – Natural or legal persons – Action brought by a regional authority

(Art. 230, fourth para., EC)

Where actions are brought by sub-national territorial bodies, the Court assesses whether they have legal personality on the basis of national public law. Community law cannot trespass on the constitutional independence of the Member States by deciding that their national public law bodies have legal personality, which could confer on them rights at Community level which they do not enjoy at national level.

It follows that a regional parliament which does not have legal capacity under national law does not have the capacity to be a party to legal proceedings before the Community courts. Consequently, its action is inadmissible.

(see paras 22, 30-31)