Case-law Digest

What is the Case-law Digest?

The Case-Law Digest contains a series of keywords and abstracts for each judgment or order. These highlight the key points of law decided. References to the relevant paragraphs of the decision are also included. It is updated weekly.

What the Digest contains

Each entry in the Digest contains a series of keywords and abstracts which concisely convey the substance of the Court decision or decisions in question.

Each series of keywords includes a link to the particular decision and an indication of the paragraphs of the decision to which it refers. Certain keywords are also followed by an abstract, which presents the fundamental points of law and, for some decisions, the facts of the decision concerned.

Within each section of the classificatory scheme, every entry is presented chronologically according to the date of the relevant decision. To avoid duplication, where the series of keywords or the abstract of a new decision is identical to an existing entry, only a reference to the new decision and the relevant paragraphs of that decision are added.

The Case-law digest is only available in French.

Case-law classification schemes

For the case-law from 1954 to 2009, the Digest is classified into eight sections. In 2010, following the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon, a new classification scheme was introduced, that is divided into nine sections. The old and new classification systems have been cross-referenced to make it easy to move from one to the other.

Every heading is divided into numerous chapters and sub-chapters giving a total of more than 1 500 classification headings.

 

Classification scheme after the Treaty of Lisbon
(applied to case-law since 2010)

  1.   The legal order of the European Union
  2.   Institutional framework of the European Union
  3.   Legal proceedings
  4.   Internal policy of the European Union
  5.   Association of Overseas Countries and Territories
  6.   External policy
  7.  General and final provisions
  8.  Accession of new Member States
  9.  Civil Service

 

Classification scheme before the Treaty of Lisbon
(applied to case-law from 1954 to 2009)

  1.  The Community legal order
  2.  The European Community (EEC/EC)
  3.  The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC/CS)
  4.  The European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC/AE)
  5.  Convention on Jurisdiction and the Enforcement of Judgments
  6.  The European Civil Service
  7.  The European Union (EU)
  8.  Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations