Mr Ciarán Toland, an Irish lawyer has won a victory for openness in the EU General Court. The European Parliament has lost. The disputed report will be released.
Being the only directly elected political body of the EU, the European Parliament likes to present itself as a beacon of openness and transparency.
Not so, in a case brought to court by the Irish barrister Ciarán Toland. In 2008 Mr Toland requested an audit report about allowances paid out to the politician’s assistants in Brussels and Luxembourg.
His request was partly rejected.
The Bureau of the Parliament denied access to one of 16 background reports, claiming that this was a ”sensitive matter followed with great interest by the media, and that elements of the reports could be used to derail the debate on the reform of the system and compromise rapid reform”.
The General Court, which is the lower of the two EU courts in Luxembourg, and formally known as the Court of First Instance, comes down hard on these arguments.

In its judgement of June 7 the Court says that a fear for the decision-making to be undermined is ”purely hypothetical”.
The Court then adds that the fact that the report is sensitive and followed by the media ”cannot justify in itself an objective reason to hold back the report without calling into question the very principle of transparency”.
The Court thus annuls the decision by the Bureau of the Parliament to refuse access to Mr Toland.
»I am delighted with the result today. When they refused me access to the report, the European Parliament effectively said that the taxpayers of Europe, who fund the parliament, cannot be trusted to know how
their money is being spent by that parliament, nor are they entitled to the recommendations that exist for how the system should be reformed,« Mr Toland stated after the judgement.

Ciarán Toland who describes himself as a pro-EU activist for nearly ten years, and who has been a director for the European Movement in Ireland for five years went on to say:
”This case has now established new rights of access to a wide range of documents by both citizens and the media. In particular, an institution will not be able to claim that political controversy is a ground to refuse access. Moreover, this case has established that the public has right of access to Internal Audit Reports to which both the Commission and Parliament have up to now refused access.”

Ciarán Toland also pointed out that involving the public in any debate on legislative reform, or in respect of public funds, is an essential prerequisite of a democratic system:
”No self-respecting parliament should ever be afraid to discuss its finances in front of the citizens who elect it, and who pay for those very funds. That is why I took the case and why I am so pleased with today’s result”, he said, although he had not yet received the report at the time of writing.

It will take a new request, and a new decision by the Bureau to put an end to the case – unless the Parliament chooses to appeal the judgement to the European Court of Justice which is the highest instance in the EU legal system.
MEP Diana Wallis, vice president of the Parliament, and a member of the Bureau, informs this website that the final decision institutionally has to be taken by Parliament's Bureau which does not meet until 22nd June.
”Speaking in entirely my personal capacity I would release the document,” she adds.

UPDATE: The Parliament's Bureau has decided to release the audit report, and will not appeal the decision by the General Court, according to a press release from  22 June. 

Staffan Dahllöf