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34 B. L. J. 7 (2002)
The Community Judiciary at the Dawn of the Third Millennium: A Revolution or a Simple Face-Lift

handle is hein.journals/braclj34 and id is 7 raw text is: THE COMMUNITY JUDICIARY AT THE DAWN OF THE THIRD MILLENIUM: A REVOLUTION OR A SIMPLE FACE-LIFT? Dr Marie-Pierre F. Granger JEP Lyons, Maitrises (Lyons and Thessaloniki), DEA (Montpellier), PhD (Exon) Tutor, School ofLaw, University of Exeter Introduction: The Wind of Change Blowing on the EU Judicial System The reform of the European Community judicial system had been notably missing from the table of negotiations of most of the Intergovernmental Conferences (IGC) until last year. The institutional reform appearing on the program of the 1996 IGC had given way to politically more urgent matters, and in the end, the Treaty of Amsterdam did not tackle the question of the reorganisation of the Community judiciary. Despite some rather pessimistic predictions,' the year 2000 has turned out to be profitable for the Community judiciary in many respects. First of all, the 2000 IGC negotiators finally took into hand the long awaited reform of the European judicial system, which had over time become a matter of urgency, not only because of the need of adaptation to the future enlargements, but also because of the threat of complete congestion of the system.2 The case load of the Community Courts has grown rapidly, mostly due to the increasing size of the European Union (hereinafter EU) the new fields of competence of the European Community (hereinafter EC) and of the EU3 and the increased control of the Court over it,4 and a general .The author is grateful for the helpful suggestions and comments made by Prof. Betten, Prof. Arnull, Prof Bridge, Dr Betlem and Dr Arsalidou on earlier drafts. However, the final responsibility for the text lies solely with the author. Meij 'Guest Editorial: Architects or Judges? Some Comments In Relation to the Current Debate?' (2000) 37 CMLRev. 1039, at 1089 2 '...the Court is in need of urgent reform.. in order to enable it to adapt to current and changing circumstances so that it can continue doing that which it has been doing since the European Communities were set up: to ensure the respect for the law' (The EC Court of Justice and the Institutional Reform of the European Union, April 2000, at 1, available at http://www.curia.eu.int). 3 The EU is composed of three pillars: the Communities (EC, ECSC and Euratom) pillar, the Common Foreign and Security Policy pillar and the Justice and Home Affairs pillar. As the Court's jurisdiction covers mostly the first pillar, this article will focus on Community issues, although the Court has a limited jurisdiction over third pillar issues, which will not be examined here. However, for the sake of convenience, when the distinction is not necessary, EU and EC will be used alternatively. For example, I will talk about the EU judicial system although technically this system is built within the structure of the Community pillar. 4 The focus of this article is procedural. Therefore, the changes made with regard to the substantive scope of the Community courts' jurisdiction will not be examined in this paper, although the Treaty of Nice, when (and if) ratified, will bring some changes in that respect.

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