The Gazette 1975

provide for Rules of Procedure to be adopted by the

Court subject to the approval of the Council. The

Accession of the three new Member States naturally

made it necessary for the Court to adopt new Rules of

Procedure. But for most practical purposes the new

Rules, which are dated 4th December 1974, do not

differ materially from the old Pre-accession rules, sub-

ject to obvious adaptations such as the use of Irish

English or Danish as official languages, and subject

also to minor modifications introduced at the British

behest such as the direct examination of witnesses by

lawyers.

Time limits rigid

In general, the procedure of the Court is much more

flexible than that of an Irish Court. In some respects,

it is almost informal. But I must warn you that there is

one respect in which it is more rigid and that is in the

matter of time limits for lodging pleadings and so forth.

You just cannot let the date for lodging a pleading go

by and then apply for an extension of time. And it is

very difficult to get an adjournment of a hearing. The

Court is hostile to any sort of threat of delay.

It is a tradition at the Court for any practitioner in

any Member State who is in a fix, or even in doubt, on

a question of procedure to ring up, or write to, the

Legal Secretary to the Judge of his nationality and ask

for help. So any Irish Solicitor is free at any time to

get in touch either with Judge Andreas O'Keeffe's

Legal Secretary, who incidentally is French; he has also

an Irish assistant at his office.

The requisite Law Reports

One of the important tools of the trade is the E.C.R.,

the

European

Court Reports.

This is the version in

English of the Official Reports of cases heard by the

Court. Before accession these official reports were pub-

hshed in the four original official languages of the

Communities, Dutch, French, German and Italian.

Now they are being published in English and Danish

as well. No Irish version will appear. As regards post-

accession cases, that is cases decided in and after 1973,

Irish practitioners are expected to cite the E.C R. They

contain the full text of the judgment and of the

Advocate-General's opinion in all cases.

For the time being, most pre-accession cases can be

cited in English only in one of the unofficial translations

appearing in for instance the

Common Market Law

Reports.

However, as I have mentioned, the official

reports of the years before accession are being translated

into English. No Irish version will appear. Back

volumes of the E C R. are published from time to time.

The volumes published so far are those for 1962, 1963,

1964, 1965 and 1966 The next to be published will be

those for 1967 to 1972. The translators will then go

back to the beginning and produce the volumes for

1954 to 1961. Subscription for the 18 volumes to 1972

if ordered in one lot is £150.00 and if purchased in

individual volumes the price is £15.00 each. The sub-

scription for 1973 is £10.00 and for 1974 is £14.20

1 hey are all available from Messrs. Greene & Co Book-

sellers, 11 Clare Street, Dublin 2.

Language adopted

Under the rules of Procedure each case is conducted

in one of the official languages, which is called the

language of the case. In direct actions the language of

the case is chosen by the Applicant, except where the

defendant is a Member State, when it is the language

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of that State. In references for a preliminary ruling it

is the language of the Court that makes the reference.

This of course makes it much easier for practitioners,

because it means they can generally conduct a case in

their own language. Nonetheless, you may find it neces-

sary at times at a hearing to whip on headphones and

listen to the simultaneous translation, particularly if

you do not understand French. This is because Mem-

bers of the Court are entitled, and witnesses may be

permitted, to use a language other than the language

of the case In practice the President always speaks

French and one or two of the other Judges sometimes

do, even in cases where the language is English. One

point of interest to practitioners appearing before this

Court is that unlike the Irish accepted procedure of

interjecting and interfering with the run of the evidence

the Judges of this Court never question interject or

interfere with a practitioner making submissions before

them or conducting a case, and would consider it most

improper to do so.

The procedure itself is basically simple. It consists of

a written part and an oral part. In practice the written

part is by far the more important. This is for two

reasons. One is the Continental tradition—particularly

the Belgian and the German. It happens that in some

of the superior Belgian Courts they do not have oral

hearings at all and that in many German Courts, the

oral hearing is a mere formality.

The second reason is. again, the linguistic problem.

This does not arise so much if the language of the case

is French or English. But if it is for instance, Dutch,

which only two members of the Court understand, it

means that, at a hearing, everybody on the Bench,

apart from those two, is listening, not to the solicitor,

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