From Act-on-ACTA

Subject: Request to the legal service - concerning the minutes of 01/12/2010

Date: Friday 3 December 2010

From: MEP Jan Philipp Albrecht

Dear Mr Lehne,

dear JURI Coordinators,

I'm afraid that Eva Lichtenberger, Green JURI Coordinator, and me cannot agree with the decision taken and written in the minutes of yesterday's coordinators' meeting.

As you can read from the note of the coordinators: "The Greens/EFA group has asked JURI to look into study the possibility of Parliament's seeking the opinion of the Court of Justice on the compatibility of the proposed ACTA agreement with the Treaties on the following grounds: ... (to summarise the question - the compatibility of ACTA with the Treaties)... The Chair proposes to ask for the opinion of the Legal Service, in particular, on the procedural aspects of the matter".

During the meeting, instead of voting on this request, you, the Chair, followed the suggestion of the Legal Service that how to address the Court is a matter falling within the competence of the AFCO Committee. Whatever the merits of that suggestion, I fail to see why it would prevent the JURI committee from requesting the opinion of the Legal Service on both the substantive compatibility with the treaties of ACTA and the procedural aspects of the Parliament's right to request an Opinion from the Court.

I know we are a small Group and that our request could eventually not be shared with the other political Groups, but I do think that we have the right as a Group to have our questions asked and answered in a proper way.

Therefore, I kindly ask you for a formal decision to be taken in the next Committee meeting on the 16th of December on our proposal "to ask the legal service of the Parliament if the final Version of ACTA and its foreseen legislative procedure is in line with the Treaties of the European Union and which legal possibilities there are for the European Parliament to challenge this in front of the European Court of Justice".

I am confident you will find my request fair and acceptable.

Beside this I think that the rules and practices of the parliament to give no minority rights especially in getting legal certainty are in opposition to a democratic procedure. As a review of those things depends on a majority and would perhaps take longer than I will be MEP I ask you to change the way we deal with such requests to the legal service.

Thank you!

Yours Sincerely,

Jan Philipp Albrecht