REVIEWS

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1987.tb02585.x
Published date01 May 1987
Date01 May 1987
REVIEWS
THE
EUROPEAN COURT
OF
JUSTICE:
PRACTICE
AND
PROCEDURE.
By
K.
P.
E.
LASOK.
[London: Butterworths.
1984.
xlvii and
437
pp.
f47.50.1
FOR
many years there was very little written on the procedure
of
the
European Court, apart from Donald Valentine’s pioneering study
published in
1965.’
The
reason for this is probably that
a
book on
practice and procedure is generally
of
interest
only
to practising lawyers
and in the early days there were insufficient cases before the European
Court to support many specialist lawyers and thus to make such a book
commercially viable. In time, however, the caseload
of
the Court grew
from a mere handful
to
between
300
and
400
cases each year. Many
of
these involve national governments
or
major business concerns and
practice before the European Court has become a very profitable area
of
specialisation. Hence the demand for a book on procedure, a demand
which has now been met by two books, first John A. Usher’s
European
Court Practice
(1983)
and now Lasok’s book.
Mr.
K.
P.
E.
Lasok, who is the son of Professor D. Lasok (whose
writings on Community law are well known), has worked for a number
of
years as a Legal Secretary at the European Court and has thus been
better placed than almost anyone else, except the Registrar and the
members of the Court themselves, to observe the workings of the
European Court
.2
The book deals very thoroughly with all aspects
of
procedure. After
an introductory chapter on the structure of the Court, which covers
such matters as the appointment of Judges, there
is
a chapter giving a
general outline
of
the procedure, and then chapters dealing with
particular matters, including parties, representation and legal aid,
intervention (a procedure whereby non-parties may
in
certain circumstan-
ces make submissions to the Court), admissibility, interim relief,
pleading, evidence (a very under-developed area this, compared with
the English law
of
evidence), costs and judgments.
The
entire text runs
to
369
fairly closely printed pages; in addition, an Appendix sets out
the Statutes
of
the Court, the Rules of Procedure and various
supplementary texts.
The most striking characteristic of the book is its great attention to
detail. Almost from the beginning, general observations rapidly move
into a carefully argued discussion of detailed problems (including
problems that have not yet occurred and may well never occur). This
D.
G.
Valentine,
The Court
of
Justice
of
The European Conimitniries.
There have
also been specialist works on particular aspects
of
procedure, such as
F.
Jacobs and A.
Durand,
References
to
the
European Court: Practice
and
Procedure
(1975); and
L.
Neville
Brown and Francis
G.
Jacobs,
The Court
of
Justice
of
the European Communiries
(1st ed.
1977, 2nd ed. 1983), an introductory students’ text.
*
A
Legal Secretary works as a personal assistant
to
either a Judge
or
Advocate
General. He does legal research and, where he works
for
an Advocate General, helps to
draft opinions. John Usher, the author of the other book on procedure, was also a Legal
Secretary for a time.
406

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