As with any other court here in the United Kingdom, I am sure there will be judgments with which my hon. Friend and I might have quarrels and wish that learned judges had come to other opinions. Where I would respond robustly to him is to say that, as far as I can tell, in coming to their decisions the justices of the European Union Courts take very seriously their duty to apply the law as it is found in the treaties and in secondary European legislation. The appointment of judges at the EU Courts is subject to approval by an expert panel. Indeed, to be eligible to serve as a justice in the European Court, the man or woman in question must either have served in a senior judicial office in their home country or be of sufficient standing in the law to be regarded as capable of exercising that kind of responsibility.
I believe that the measure we are discussing will provide quicker and more efficient justice within the European Union. The proposal is to increase the number of advocates-general to nine from 1 July 2013 and to 11 from 7 October 2015. The first advocate-general would be a permanent Polish advocate-general. Under declaration 38 in article 252 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, member states agreed in 2007 that if there were an increase in advocates-general, Poland would have a permanent advocate-general and no longer take part in the rotation of advocates-general. This step would bring Poland into line with the other big six member states, including the United Kingdom, which all already have a permanent advocate-general. An additional two advocates-general would increase the existing rotation system from three to five. Under
current arrangements, we would expect the first two additional advocates-general appointed in October 2015 to be Czech and Danish.
In the 2011 report on the workload of the European Court of Justice, the House of Lords recommended that the number of advocates-general be increased. Since 2011, the Lords have repeated that recommendation several times, including in their follow-up report this year, and called for the increase to be implemented without delay. Last night, in its section 10 debate on this matter, the House of Lords approved the draft Council decision and Members of their lordships’ House spoke positively about the impact that additional advocates-general would have on the efficient functioning of the courts.
The role of advocates-general is to produce non-legally binding opinions for the Court of Justice to assist it in reaching its judgments.