Notice for the OJ
Action brought on 19 February 2004 by Yves Franchet and Daniel Byk against the Commission of the European Communities
(Case T-70/04)
Language of the case: French
An action against the Commission of the European Communities was brought before the Court of First Instance of the European Communities on 19 February 2004 by Yves Franchet and Daniel Byk, residing in Luxembourg, represented by Georges Vandersanden and Laure Levi, lawyers.
The applicants claim that the Court should:
1. annul the tacit decision of the Commission of the European Communities refusing to grant the applicants' application for access to various documents in the possession of that institution and the Commission decision of 19 December 2003 rejecting the confirmatory application submitted by the applicants on 2 December 2003;
2. order the defendant to pay the costs.
Pleas in law and main arguments:
The applicants object to the defendant's refusal to give them access to certain documents relating to the EUROSTAT file. In issue is, in particular, the final report of the Internal Audit Service (IAS) and the annexes to the report of the IAS of 7 July 2003.
The defendant bases its refusal on the exception laid down in the third indent of Article 4(2) of Regulation (EC) No 1049/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2001 regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents,
1 namely the protection of the purpose of inspections, investigations and audits.
In support of their claims, the applicants argue:
infringement of Articles 2 and 4 of the abovementioned regulation, of the fundamental right of access to documents and of the principle of proportionality;
the existence of a manifest error of assessment;
disregard of the duty to state reasons.
They take the view that the defendant:
gives a broad meaning in the contested decision to the exceptions it relies on;
has clearly wrongly assessed the elements of the case;
has failed to evaluate the applications for access in this case in the light of the actual content of the documents in relation to the exceptions relied on, even assuming that they can be relied upon. In addition, it did not give reasons why partial communication could not have been envisaged;
has failed to weigh up the interests in question.
____________1 - OJ L 145 of 31.5.2001, p.43