At last! Reaching the remedy for delay after a long ride through the EU judicial system
| DOI | 10.1177/1023263X17722335 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Michal Ovádek |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Subject Matter | Case notes |
Case note
At last!Reaching the remedy
for delay after a long ride
through the EU judicial system
Case T-577/14 Gascogne Sack Deutschland
and Gascogne v. European Union, EU:T:2017:1
Michal Ova
´dek*
1. Introduction
Complaints about the excessive length of judicial proceedings in Europe are hardly anything new
under the sun. Even a cursory glance at the caseload of the European Court of Human Rights
(ECtHR) reveals that in the last ten years alone, the Strasbourg court delivered judgments in over
2000 cases involving the alleged breach of the reasonable time requirement pursuant to Article 6 of
1
Although mindful of the potential problems associated with a mountain of new and pending
cases, the EU judiciary has, until recently, faced only a few legal challenges relating to excessively
long proceedings.
2
As a result, the steadily increasing strain on the EU courts was left largely
unaided until delays became more commonplace and more serious. The tipping point came in 2011
when the General Court issued judgments in several competition law cases after nearly six years of
proceedings which, on appeal, the Court of Justice (CJEU) deemed to be unjustifiably protracted.
3
* Research Fellow and PhD Candidate, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium
Corresponding author:
Michal Ova
´dek, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.
Email: michal.ovadek@kuleuven.be
1. More than a fifth of all violations found by the ECtHR concerned the reasonable time requirement prescribed by Article
6 ECHR.
2. The first case in which the CJEU acknowledged that a delay in breach of the litigant’s rights occurred was Case C-185/
95 P Baustahlgewebe v. Commission, EU:C:1998:608. The case was decided in 1998 but it took eleven years before the
CJEU had another opportunity to revisit the issue in Case C-385/07 P Der Gru
¨ne Punkt – Duales System Deutschland v.
Commission, EU:C:2009:456.
3. Case C-40/12 P Gascogne Sack Deutschland GmbH v. Commission, EU:C:2013:768; Case C-58/12 P Groupe Gascogne
SA v. Commission, EU:C:2013:770; Case C-50/12 P Kendrion NV v. Commission, EU:C:2013:771; Case C-578/11 P
Deltafina SpA v. Commission, EU:C:2014:1742; Case C-35/12 P ASPLA v. Commission, EU:C:2014:348; Case C-36/12
Maastricht Journal of European and
Comparative Law
2017, Vol. 24(3) 438–447
ªThe Author(s) 2017
Reprints and permissions:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1023263X17722335
maastrichtjournal.sagepub.com
MJ
MJ
To continue reading
Request your trial