number 1 - Centre d'études et de recherches européennes Robert ...

The Court of Justice and its Role as a driving Force in European Integration 117
counted among its members two Frenchmen and two Germans. The Netherlands
were granted a second judge, thus keeping the panel to an uneven number. Italy
was represented by only one judge, but he was the president 14 .
In Paris it was then decided that, in the same way as the High Authority, the
Court should start work in Luxembourg pending the establishment of a provisional
seat for the Institutions.
The Court settled rather precariously into unsuitable but sumptuously decorated
quarters in the museum which the Villa Vauban had already become. At the same time
its courtrooms were installed at the Cercle Municipal in the centre of town, a few
hundred metres away from the offices of the members of the Court and its staff 15 .
Just before the treaties of Rome came into force the President of the Court, consulted
as were the other heads of institutions on the matter of the seat of the institutions,
made it known that as long as the working hypothesis of having several seats
continued, the Court's geographical separation from the other Community bodies did
not present any major drawbacks 16 . In other words, the Court liked Luxembourg.
The single Court of Justice for the three Communities continued to sit in
Luxembourg, and this situation was confirmed by the governments in a decision
which they reached in April 1965 at the same time as the merger treaty.
Upon the occasion of the Community's first enlargement the Court moved to the
"Plateau du Kirchberg", Luxembourg's European headquarters. It occupies the
same quarters today ; and its seat in Luxembourg is no longer provisional, because
with effect from December 1992, it was decided definitively that the Court should
sit in Luxembourg 17 .
The Court started operations on 4 December 1952 when its members were
sworn in. Subsequently, it appointed its registrar in the person of the Belgian,
Albert Van Houtte. The administrative personnel and the judges' direct assistants
were quickly recruited 18 . The staff increased from just under sixty to eighty in
14. In the end, in the overall calculation for major posts, the Netherlands found itself "level pegging"
with Belgium since the coopted member of the High Authority, Paul Finet, had raised the number
of Belgians on that body to two. The Germans and French, for their part, were in any case initially
represented in greater numbers in the two institutions mentioned.
15. See A. VAN HOUTTE, Registrar of the Court for some thirty-odd years in XXXV Anni, 1952-1987
(brochure published upon the occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the Court, Curia, Luxembourg,
1987 252 pp.).
16. B. HEMBLENNE, "Les problèmes du siège et du régime linguistique" in Die Anfänge der Verwaltung
der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, Baden-Baden 1992, on p. 107 and onward.
17. Decision on the location of the seats of the institutions and of certain bodies and departments of the
European Communities dealt with in parallel with the Edinburgh Council, OJ C 341, 23 December
1992.
18. Article 16 of the Statutes of the ECSC Court also provided for the presence, alongside officials and
employees, of assistant rapporteurs whose task it was to "participate in preparatory inquiries in
cases pending before the Court and to cooperate with the Judge who acts as Rapporteur". These
posts, which it was up to the Council to create acting upon a proposal by the Court, have never
seen the light of day although such functions are still been envisaged under Article 12 of the Statute
of the European Community's Court. The judges' direct assistants who were at first called
"attachés" ended up by being called "référendaires" or "legal secretaries".