Europe

Legal Aid

Proposal for Community-wide legal aid scheme
In January, the Commission released a proposal for a Directive aimed at making it easier for EU residents in civil cases to apply for financial assistance in their own Member State for proceedings taking place in another Member State. The proposal is intended to improve access to justice in cross-border disputes by establishing minimum common rules relating to legal aid within the EU. It would also apply to non-profit making organisations and would extend to all civil law cases including family, employment, commercial law and consumer protection. Effectively, individuals who are not financially able to fund their cases would be able to apply for free pre-litigation advice and representation in court. The Member State hearing the dispute would provide the aid, and would retain the right to set the scale of aid and the eligibility criteria. Additionally, individuals could apply in their home Member State for funding the cost of seeking advice from a lawyer in the Member State of the forum. The proposal is to be sent to the European Parliament for consultation and will need to be endorsed unanimously by the Council of Ministers. If adopted, the Directive must be transposed into national law by 1 January 2004. To be covered by the Directive, the UK and Ireland have to choose to “opt in” under the protocol on civil law annexed to the treaties.

E-Commerce

Three EU states meet implementation deadline for e-commerce Directive

The UK Government is trailing the pack when it comes to implementation of the Electronic Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC on certain legal aspects of electronic commerce in the Internal Market). According to the European Commission, only three Member States (Luxembourg, Austria and Germany) transposed the Directive into their domestic legislation by the 16 January deadline. The Directive applies to business-to-business and business-to-consumer transactions and its aim is to establish a legal framework to promote the development of e-commerce within the internal market. As well as setting out the application of key principles (free movement of services and freedom of establishment of service providers), it establishes the country of origin principle so that service providers must comply with the laws of the Member State of origin. Five EU Member States (Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France and Spain) have officially notified the European Commission of their draft legislation for implementation of the e-commerce Directive. A further four Member States have drafted implementing legislation but have not yet notified the Commission. The UK and two other Member States are still working on drafting the implementing legislation.

Pensions

Court ruling promotes EU citizen’s pension rights

A preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice on 15 January has succeeded in boosting the rights of EU citizens to obtain a pension in a Member State other than their own. Case C-55/00, concerned a Mrs Gottardo, a French national, who had worked as a teacher in France, Switzerland and Italy, paying social security payments in all three countries. She is in receipt of a French and Swiss pension but was refused a pension in Italy. This was on the basis that Italy had entered into a Convention with Switzerland allowing for the transfer of pension rights but, as France was not a party to this agreement and Switzerland was not a member of the EU, Mrs Gottardo’s Swiss contributions were not counted when her application was being considered. It was decided by the ECJ that this amounted to discrimination, as an Italian national would have had their Swiss contributions taken into account. This decision, in theory, concludes that any Convention on social security, entered into by one Member State with a country that is not part of the EU, should benefit any EU citizen as it would the Member State national.

Justice and Home Affairs

New glossary aims to explain EU legalese – Employment Law

The Spanish Presidency of the EU has embarked upon an ambitious project that will be of practical use to lawyers, judges and other legal professionals. The planned publication of a glossary of some three hundred legal phrases, institutions and concepts, will go some way towards assisting the profession in understanding the legalese used in all EU jurisdictions. The glossary will be named ‘Solon’ in recognition of the sixth century Greek jurist. This project is being undertaken in collaboration with the European Judicial Network (EJN) which was set up in 1998 to offer assistance to national judges and prosecutors in the combating of cross-border crime. The glossary is expected to be completed in May 2002 and will be available in paper form as well as on the internet and CD-ROM.