Europa Institute
Universiteit Leiden
Guide to doing research in European law
[March 2007]
Introduction
This guide explains several techniques for finding information on European law. Comments to this
guide can be sent to Jeroen Boot ([email protected]), Nelleke Koffeman
([email protected]) or Nienke van den Berg ([email protected]).
Paragraphs 1-3 indicate how you can get access to sources of EC/EU law. Paragraph 4 addresses the
European Court of Human Rights.
1 | The Treaties
Consolidated versions of treaties on which the European Union and European Communities are
founded, can be found under: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/en/treaties/index.htm. Please remember that with
the entering into force of the Amsterdam Treaty (1999), the numbering of all Articles has changed, i.e.
all judgments adopted before May 1999 refer to the old numbering. For example, Art. 86 EC Treaty on
the abuse of dominance is now enshrined in Art. 82 EC.
Or go to www.europa.eu, select your language, click on the tap ‘documents’, EUR-LEX and then click
on ‘treaties’ at the left side of your screen.
2 | Legislation
I – Information before searching
The Official Journal of the European Communities (OJ) publishes all relevant documents regarding
legislation and the legislation itself. An example of an OJ-publication can be: OJ L 260 06/10/2005
p.0021-0026. This combination contains the series, followed by the OJ number, date and the pagenumber.
There are two series in the OJ.
- the L-series: All legislation, i.e. EC law adopted pursuant to powers provided for in the Treaty
or otherwise mandated, is published in the OJ in the L-series.
- the C-series: The C-series of the OJ contain other documents such as preparatory documents,
notices and other types of information.
a. Regulations
Regulations are numbered as follows:
•
Regulation 139/2004 of 20 January 2004 on the control of concentrations between
undertakings.
2004 stands for the year 2004 in which the regulation was enacted. The number 139 indicates that it is
the 139th regulation adopted in the year 2004.
b. Directives
Directives are numbered as follows:
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•
Directive 89/552/EEC, of 3 October 1989 on the coordination of certain provisions laid down
by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States concerning the pursuit of
television broadcasting activities.
Here the numbering is the exact opposite as for regulations. The first number 89 indicates the year and
the second indicates that it is the 552nd directive adopted by the Community that year.
When legislation is amended, the new act will indicate which act is amended:
•
Directive 97/36/EC amending Council Directive 89/522/EEC.
A consolidated version contains the amendments which have been made in the original legislation. It
is not usual to do consolidated versions of acts that have been amended. In some instances, the
Commission will do such consolidations which are then unofficial versions. The Commission has done
so for the television directives. Such version can be found on the internet site of the EU.
Legislation before the entry into force of the Maastricht Treaty (1993) was indicated by inserting the
letter EEC. After Maastricht, the abbreviation EC is used. Citations should always refer to the OJ.
c. Other important documents
Major legislation is often preceded by Commission Papers on that particular topic. Green Papers
intend to launch a discussion on a particular topic and invite interested parties to participate in a
process of consultation and debate. They can also provide an impetus for subsequent legislation. See
e.g. Green Paper on a European Strategy for Sustainable, Competitive and Secure Energy.
Commission White Papers, on the other hand, contain concrete proposals for Community action in a
specific area, e.g. White Paper on European Governance.
The Commission publishes bi-monthly bulletins summarizing the main developments. These bulletins
are a useful source of information for a quick update on relatively recent developments.
The Commission also publishes annual reports on the activities of the Communities as well as an
annual report on the implementation of Community law in the OJ. Furthermore, the Commission
publishes an annual report on competition policy which is a rich source of information. Further reports
in specific areas such as telecom, electricity and natural gas are published on a regular basis. These
reports are normally not published in the OJ but they are available on internet.
II – How to find legislation
First go to EUR-LEX: open the Europa website at www.europa.eu, select your language, click on the
tab ‘documents’, and then on EUR-LEX.
If you have the number of the regulation or directive, click on ‘simple search’ then click on ‘search
terms’. Fill out the number and press ‘search’. E.g. 1/2003 or 89/552.
If you know (a part of) the name of the document, fill out the name as search term, e.g. ‘equal
treatment’. Note that the originally enacted document is the last document on the list. All the newer
amendments/other related documents are listed before.
If you know the OJ-number (e.g. OJ L 260, p.21), start from the EUR-LEX site and click on ‘simple
search’. Now click on ‘Official Journal’ and you can fill in (a combination of) the year, date, series,
OJ-number and page-number.
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If you need more information on a specific topic, it can be of great help to go to the responsible
department of the European Commission. Go to www.europa.eu, select your language, and click on
‘European Commission’ under the tab ‘institutions’. Here you can select the specific policy topic, to
find preparatory documents or Green or White papers.
Another useful search tool can be found under: www.catoss.com (an EU search engine in cooperation
with Google).
3 | Jurisprudence ECJ
I – Information before searching
The numbering of cases is as follows; Case 26/62 for example is the 26th case of 1962. Note the
difference in numbering before and after 1989, the year when the Court of First Instance (CFI) was
established. In 2005, a third Community Court, the Civil Service Tribunal was established. Please
differentiate between the judgments of the several Community courts.
Before 1989:
• Case 26/62, Van Gend en Loos, [1963] ECR 1.
After 1989 C(ourt):
• Case C-376/98, Germany v European Parliament and Council of the European Union, [2000]
ECR I-8419.
After 1989 T(ribunal) (referring to the Court of First Instance):
• Case T-79/03, IRO / Commission, [2003] ECR II-3027
After 2005
• F-62/06, Guarneri / Commission
Since 1997, Opinions of the Advocate-Generals of the European Court of Justice are published online.
If you need Opinions of an earlier date you should use the European Court Reports (i.e. the paper
copies). The Court of First Instance does not have Advocate-Generals.
Judgments of the Court of Justice that follow an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First Instance
have the letter P added to the case number, e.g. C-352/98 P, Bergaderm v. Commission, [2000] ECR I5291. This indicates that the judgment concerns an appeal from a judgment of the Court of First
Instance. The letter P stands for Pourvoi (appeal).
Interim judgments have the letter R added to the case number, e.g. C-120/94 R, Commission v.
Greece, [1994] ECR I-3037. The letter R stands for the French word Référé (interim measures). The
number of the case will remain the same for the subsequent judgment. The numbers for interim
judgments of the CFI are different from those in the main proceedings.
Judgments of the ECJ have to be distinguished from orders. Normally, ECJ orders concern matters
relating to the procedure and even though these orders show up on the internet sites, they do not have
an independent function apart from the judgment to which they are related. Occasionally, however,
ECJ orders have an independent function and can be compared with judgments, e.g. C-2/88,
Zwartveld, [1990] ECR I-3365.
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These ‘procedural’ orders have to be distinguished from reasoned orders which the ECJ issues in
preliminary ruling procedures. This is the case where a question referred for a preliminary ruling has
already been answered in a previous ruling, the answer is beyond reasonable doubt or where the
answer may be deduced from existing case law. In its order, the ECJ then cites the previous judgment
relating to that question or the relevant case law.
Judgments of the ECJ also have to be distinguished from Opinions. The ECJ can give opinions
pursuant to Art. 300 EC, which usually carry great weight. These opinions have a separate number,
e.g. 1/94, WTO-GATTS and TRIP’s, [1994] ECR I-5267, or 2/94, Accession of the Community to the
European Convention on Human Rights, [1996] ECR I-1759. The Court of First Instance cannot give
Opinions.
II – Publication
The hardcopies of the C(ourt)-judgements are published in part I of the European Court Reports
(ECR) and the T-(ribunal)-judgements (of the Court of First Instance) are published in part II. Before
1989, there was only one Report.
While all judgments are immediately published on the Court’s website, it usually takes a while before
they are published in the ECR. During the interim period, they are indicated with the date and the
abbreviation n.y.r. = not yet reported.
The publication service of the Courts issues an unofficial summary in the weekly report, which
contrary to what one would expect from the title, do not appear regularly every week. The official
publication is in the European Court Reports, many months after the official date. The delay is now
approximately 14 months. These reports give the official version in all official languages. These are
also the only version that contains the opinion of the Advocate-General.
III – How to find jurisprudence?
In order to find jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice (ECJ), go to www.curia.eu and select
your language. Then select ‘numerical access to case law’ under ‘case law’.
If you know the case-number, date or (one of) the parties, the easiest way to find the requested
judgment is to use the find-function of your browser. Choose the court (and the period if needed) and
all the judgments will appear. Now use the find-function of your browser to search on case-number or
party.
There is a second way to search for jurisprudence (published after 17-6-1997). Go to www.curia.eu,
select your language and click ‘search form’ under ‘case law’. Now click ‘search form’ again (in the
middle of your screen). Here you can search the full text of the judgments. AG-opinions are also
included.
For press releases of the Court, click on ‘News’ on the left side of the screen and then on ‘Press
Releases’. To view the annotations of legal commentators to the judgments, click on the link
‘Annotation of judgments’ on the left side of the screen. This service is only available in French.
The Website of the Court also provides an overview of all case law (again only in French) divided by
field of law, e.g. all case law related to the non-contractual liability of the Community, or all case law
related to free movement of goods. Go to www.curia.eu, select French as the language, go to
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‘jurisprudence’ and then ‘répértoire de jurisprudence’. Then, for all case law related to the EC, choose
‘la communauté européenne’. This will lead you to a list of all relevant fields of law.
4 | Jurisprudence ECHR
I – Information before searching
The European Court on Human Rights (ECtHR) is located in Strasbourg, France and it enforces the
European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights (ECHR) drawn up by the Council of Europe
(not to be confused with the European Council or the Council of the EU!). The website of the
Council of Europe is www.coe.int
The European Court of Human Rights HUDOC Portal is an information system which provides access
to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights. It also includes certain materials from the
European Commission of Human Rights (which has now been abolished) and the Committee of
Ministers (which in the past decided certain categories of cases)..
The European Court of Human Rights can give a decision (admissibility, friendly settlement) or a
judgment on the merits of a case. The former European Commission of Human Rights (EComHR)
used to give only decisions. Note the difference.
The official languages of the ECtHR are English and French. The Court’s most important judgments
are published in both languages, the others only in English or French. Therefore, some judgments are
available in French only. You can select this language in the HUDOC search form.
II – How to find jurisprudence?
Go to: www.echr.coe.int
In HUDOC you can search the jurisprudence. There are several ways of entering HUDOC. You can
use the direct link or first click ‘case law’. If you do the latter, you have more options.
After entering the HUDOC database, you have several search options, depending on the information
you already have.
Suppose, you are looking for the following judgment:
• Appleby and others v. The United Kingdom, 6 May 2003, appl no. 44306/98.
In the box on the left-side of your screen you can select what kind of document you search, e.g. a
decision or a judgment. If you are not sure what you are looking for, it might be of use to select both.
The most certain search term to use is the application number. Since this is a unique number, you
should be able to find the exact case you are looking for. Some cases are given more than one
application number; you can use any of them. If you do not have the application number, but you do
know the name of the case (‘Appleby’ in the example), you can fill out that name in the search box
‘name’. Please make sure that your spelling is correct, which can be difficult in cases with complex
names (e.g. names with a comma or a hyphen).
Apart from the application number and the name, you can also search for the respondent state (use the
button to select the country), exact date or period.
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When you are looking for case-law on a specific article, you should use the button to the right (with
the dots) next to the search term ‘article’. The screen that appears gives you several search options.
You can combine specific articles (e.g. 10 + 6) or search for a specific paragraph of an article (e.g. 62). Please note the citation of articles of the protocols of the ECHR (e.g. P4-2-2, meaning article 2,
paragraph 2 of the Fourth Protocol). The search screen informs you how many cases with that article
are available in the HUDOC-database.
It might be that you search for case-law on a specific topic. For this, you can use the textbox under the
search term ‘text’. There are several parts of the judgment you can select, but the most common one is
‘complete text’. Once you have searched using a key term, this term will be highlighted in red in your
search results. If you want to fill in a part of a sentence, use brackets (e.g. ‘use of force’). In addition
to searching for (a) particular keyword(s), you can also search for just a part of a keyword using the *
symbol (e.g. ‘exp*’, which gives you words like expulsion, expansion, exposure etc). The text search
option is also of great use when looking for cases which refer to a specific case. (e.g. fill in ‘Appleby’
in the text box and you will find – apart from the Appleby judgment itself - all the cases of a later date,
which refer to the Appleby case).
Please note that by combining the different search options, your search results are more precise.
Also note additional options such as: ‘sort by’ to sort your search results and ‘press’ to check the latest
judgments, chamber hearings and forthcoming judgments.
An interesting feature is the ´importance level´. Importance level 1 includes the Court’s leading cases.
It may be a good idea to limit your search to this level for your first explorations of a new area.
For a complete user-guide of HUDOC, go to www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/. You can also find the basic
documents of the Council on the website of the ECtHR, or on the site of the Council of Europe itself:
www.coe.int.
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