e-Curia
e-Curia is an application created specifically for the Court of Justice of the European Union. It allows representatives of parties involved in cases before the Court of Justice and the General Court, as well as national courts and tribunals submitting requests for a preliminary ruling, to exchange procedural documents electronically with the Registries.
Use of e-Curia is completely free of charge.
Use of e-Curia is mandatory for direct actions lodged at the General Court.
Requesting an account
In order to use e-Curia, you must submit an account request form.
The procedure varies, depending on whether the user follows the standard procedure or the special procedure.
Standard procedure
The standard procedure enables an account to be opened for the exchange of procedural documents with the Court of Justice or the General Court. It is available to
- representatives of parties, including lawyers, agents and university teachers (“representative” account”)
- people acting on behalf of national courts or tribunals that have requested, or intend to request, a preliminary ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union (“court” account)
- people who are not agents or lawyers but who are authorised under national procedural rules to represent a party before their Member States’ courts (“authorised person” account)
Provided that the request form is complete and all the supporting documents have been sent, the processing of the request will only take a few days. The applicant is informed about the creation of the account by email.
Special procedure
The special procedure is only available for cases lodged at the General Court. It is designed for urgent situations, where following the standard procedure may not allow a representative to lodge documents within a time limit. It enables users to open a provisional account so that procedural documents can be lodged. The application to create an account must then be finalised, with the necessary supporting documents sent to the Registry and received within 10 days. Failure to comply with this obligation will result in the General Court declaring the procedural document lodged via e-Curia inadmissible.
Lodging procedural documents
When you are lodging procedural documents through e-Curia, all users should keep in mind the following information.
- Format and size: Procedural documents must be in PDF format, with a maximum file size of 30 MB.
- Signatures: Documents do not need to be signed by hand – you can simply generate a PDF document directly from whatever word-processing software you are using. Scans of printed documents should be avoided, if at all possible.
- Attachments: You can include annexes or additional documents with your procedural document if necessary.
- Confirmation process: Once the documents are validated in e-Curia, the system records that they have been lodged and will send a confirmatory email.
- Physical copies: There is no need to send the original document by post or to provide certified copies. By using e-Curia, printing and posting is avoided.
Serving of procedural documents
When procedural documents have been served by the Registries through e-Curia, all users should keep in mind the following information.
- Notification: When the Registry serves a procedural document through e-Curia, the recipient will receive an email to let them know that the document is available to consult in e-Curia. The Registry is alerted as soon as the document has been accessed.
- Acknowledgement of receipt: If the recipient does not consult the document, the served document is deemed to have been accepted seven days after the notification email has sent.
Consulting the history of documents lodged and served
At any time, users can consult the history of documents that they have lodged and that have been served on them. A search form is also available to sort and locate specific documents.
Account details and delegation
All users can update and manage their account details as well as delegate certain tasks.
Users can change their password, email address or display language. There is also a procedure for recovering forgotten user IDs or passwords.
Party representatives or people acting on behalf of national courts or tribunals can register one or more assistants, who can receive procedural documents from the Registries and prepare documents for lodging. Any document prepared by assistants must be validated – by the representative or the person acting on behalf of a court or tribunal – before it is submitted.
