A full examination of your application, including a judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union can take several years. An application before the General Court takes 22 months on average.
Unless stated otherwise, the procedure before the General Court is the same as before the Court of Justice, pursuant to the Statute of the Court of Justice of the European Union. In action for annulment proceedings, you may appeal the decision of the General Court before the Court of Justice.
Acceptance
After the Court has received your initial application, it will examine it to see if your application is complete and if any important documents or information are missing.
- If the Court does not need any additional information and your application is complete, it will be placed on a list and will be examined in turn. You may not receive any notification about this.
- If your application is not complete and you need to send in additional documents, the Court will send you a letter advising you of the type of information that is missing and that your application may not be accepted as such. If this is the case, you will be granted additional time to provide the missing documents. If you fail to put the application in order within that time limit, the Court will decide whether your application becomes inadmissible or not.
Admissibility
If your application is accepted, it will be placed on a list and will be examined in turn. You may not receive a notification about this from the Court.
If the Court examines your application and concludes that one or more of the admissibility criteria are not fulfilled, you will receive a letter from the court that your complaint has been rejected.
Further examination
The procedure consists of two parts: written and oral.
If your complaint is admissible, the Court will then examine your case. The Court may give priority to certain categories of cases which it considers urgent.
When the Court examines your application, it will ask the defendant to provide its response to your complaints. The Court may also ask you to provide additional observations or information.
After the written procedure, the Court will hear agents, lawyers, witnesses, experts and the advocate general. You will be given notice by the Registrar to attend the hearing, at least one month before it takes place.
After the written and oral procedures, the Registrar will inform you of the date of delivery of the judgement. The judgement will be delivered in open court.