Alleged sexual harassment at the EU’s top court raises questions of ethics oversight – Follow the Money

“He took my hand, planted a kiss on it and said: ‘if you end up working for the Court, I’ll steal you for my cabinet.’” 

It was well past midnight on a March night last year when the incident happened, a young lawyer told Follow the Money. A group of about 10 students and coaches, responsible for guiding them, stayed on after a dinner of one of Europe’s most reputable legal competitions to have a drink in the city of Luxembourg. The group wasn’t going to participate in the finals that were to take place the next day, she said, so they didn’t have to go home early.

Among them: a judge from the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

“Then he said to my roommate: what is it like to sleep in the same room with a woman like [her]?,” the lawyer recounted. “I wasn’t quite sure whether he would leave it at  inappropriate comments.”

The dinner had been organised for the participants of the European Law Moot Court (ELMC), an annual competition where law students can show off the legal skills they had learned. The dinner was hosted at a sushi restaurant owned by acquaintances of the judge, two of the people present told FTM on conditions of anonymity; after most of the group had left, drinks flowed freely. When the restaurant closed around midnight, the judge in his 50s and the remaining group headed to another bar in the city.

During such events, coaches who had attended previous competitions had told others that they weren’t really surprised by this behaviour, attendees told FTM: the judge often behaved this way, they said, especially during the after-parties. Every year, they were trying to keep young female students away from the judge’s hands.

Not the only one

This is not an isolated case. Follow the Money tracked down at least two other cases where judges at the EU court have had complaints brought against them for transgressive behaviour in the past decade.

For this, Follow the Money extensively spoke with multiple attendees of the competition from several years, former and current employees of the Court, reviewed official documents, internal emails, and direct correspondence between the judge and a student. 

In one case, a Slovenian judge stepped down “of his own accord” following allegations of a sexually violent relationship with a subordinate.

 A few years earlier, a Romanian judge received considerable internal criticism of the way she treated her staff, according to someone working at the court with direct knowledge of the case and two other people. She is no longer employed there. (In an email, she denied that her departure from the court was linked to her alleged mistreatment of staff).

The Court did not respond to questions about these judges, citing the “personal nature” of those cases. However, a spokesperson said that the court “confirms that, in case of complaints, it always takes the necessary internal measures and cooperates, where necessary, with the competent authorities.”

But not everyone agrees with that assessment. A long-time employee said the court’s internal measures generally didn’t go far enough. 

“Judges within their cabinets decide everything. It’s their reign, their kingdom,” a person who has been working at the court for decades said. “The rule of employment is very simple: you do what I tell you to do, and if I don’t like what you do you have to leave.”

But instead of addressing potential issues properly, the court tried to sweep them under the rug, the person said. 

“I get the feeling that they want to cover issues, minimise them, and keep them inside the court – not to create bad PR,” he said. “They try to keep it quiet, not to create a scandal – and that doesn’t always do justice to the victim.”

A former employee expressed similar sentiments.

Into the void

Indeed, complaints about the people who work there rarely see the light of day. For instance, several attendees FTM spoke with noticed the judge’s allegedly transgressive behaviour during moot court contests over multiple years – but no one reported it.

All attendees of competitions and former and current employees requested anonymity due to fear of repercussions and threatening their career prospects; as the EU’s highest legal institution, the court is an attractive place of work.

During the moot competition, he was a juror during the finals of the contest.

Follow the Money has decided not to name the judge as he is not subject to a court case or other public proceedings with regards to the allegations. 

The judge also allegedly took advantage of his position during the contests: one former contestant with whom Follow the Money spoke said that the judge suggested that he could help arrange court jobs for them.

It appears that he also sought contact with female participants outside the contest through social media platforms such as LinkedIn, WhatsApp or Instagram. For example, he sent one woman insinuating messages, seen by Follow the Money, in the middle of the night, complimenting her on her dancing skills. Months later, he sent a virtual wink in apparent allusion to future encounters.

Two coaches, responsible for guiding students through the competition, decided to complain to the organisation – the ELMC Society. In an email, sent on 31 May 2023 and seen by FTM, they wrote that several female students and coaches had told them that the judge in question made inappropriate advances, was touching women, asked for their contact information, and commented on people’s appearance. “These incidents mainly took place during parties and social gatherings at both locations. People who participated in past ELMCs informally indicated that this fit the pattern they have observed during previous ELMC editions,” the email read.

A few days after the coaches sent that email, the organisation had, in an “unanimous” and “irrevocable” manner, parted ways with the judge as a member, ELMC Society said in an email to the complainants. It assured: “As a result this person is immediately relieved of any function exercised within the Society and won’t be present in future events,” the reply to the complaint reads.

Despite this, the judge showed up at the 2024 finals and, two people present said, again approached young women at the after-party, seemingly attempting to flirt.

When Follow the Money confronted the organisation about this last month, it renewed its promise of improvement. Going forward, “the person concerned” would never again be present at activities of the society, the organisation said in an email. “We consider the matter as being resolved,” a spokesperson for ELMC Society said.

The judge denies the allegations in a statement to FTM, which he also shared with the organisation.

“I have only had friendly, professional and courteous relations with participants,” he said. “I have never had any kind of romantic relationship, proposed such a relationship or insinuated that I would be willing to  develop such a relationship with a participant in the ELMC. I have never intentionally touched any person involved in the  ELMC with an erotic insinuation or connotation.”

Yet, he also wrote that he “may have underestimated” that “external perceptions” of his behaviour could differ. “Therefore, if my appearance at any of the ELMC’s social events, unintentionally as far as I am concerned, made any participant feel uncomfortable in my presence, I am deeply sorry and, if given the opportunity, would like to personally apologise to the individuals concerned.”

Checking abuse of power

The cases raise the question of whether there are sufficient corrective procedures in place at the EU court.

But it’s not just the CJEU. 

Over the years, this question has also been raised about other EU institutions. The European Parliament, for example, has repeatedly been called out for transgressive behaviour. Just last March, a survey revealed that hundreds of parliamentary assistants feel they have been treated badly. Major issues have also been reported at the European Commission and other institutions, including sexual harassment and violence.

Brussels has been working on establishing a new institute since 2022. The aim of this institute is to ensure high ethical standards across EU institutions in compliance with the promise that Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made in 2019. “If Europeans are to have faith in our Union, its institutions should be open and beyond reproach on ethics, transparency and integrity,” she pledged at the time. 

The plan was to create an EU Ethics Body, a watchdog that would scrutinise the institutions’ ethical standards. Daniel Freund, the German EU lawmaker for the Greens who negotiated the set-up on behalf of the European Parliament, explained that although the body won’t be able to deal with individual cases, its purpose is to set “common standards of the EU institutions” – which the court would have to live up to. (It’s not yet clear whether anti-harassment policy will fall within the scope of the common standards).

Yet, Koen Lenaerts, the president of the CJEU, quickly announced that the Court did not want to be subjected to such an ethical watchdog. In a letter to von der Leyen in the spring of 2022, he wrote that, in his view, the Court’s judicial independence is difficult to reconcile with oversight by an external body.

The Court of Justice is the highest judicial body within the European Union that cannot be challenged by, for example, national courts. Based on that reasoning, no other body should be placed above it to monitor European judges.

In June 2023, Lenaerts reiterated this in another letter to von der Leyen. The judge wrote that the Court could at most take note as an “observer” of the working methods of such an ethical institution “in view of its own permanent reflections on the manner in which its own rules on ethical behaviour might be adapted, where necessary, in order to ensure that the highest possible standards continue to be maintained.”

Zero tolerance

Lenaerts’ lobbying efforts were successful. When the European Parliament agreed to the creation of a new body in the spring of 2024, the Court was exempted. 

This means that the judge’s conduct during moot court contests was also handled internally.

When asked, a spokesperson for the Court said that the organisation of the contest had not informed the Court of the complaints previously. (The organisation confirmed this in an email.) However, in response to Follow the Money’s findings and questions, an internal procedure was used to determine whether the judge adhered to the Court’s ethical standards, a Court spokesperson said.

“The Court of Justice of the European Union maintains a policy of “zero tolerance” regarding inappropriate conduct. The Court has a system of internal procedures to prevent and combat such behaviour,” the spokesperson said. 

A few weeks later President Lenaerts sent a letter to FTM, arguing that there was insufficient evidence to conduct further internal investigations, partly because the victims hadn’t come forward to the Court itself. “Consequently, the information available to us does not allow us to take further action,” he wrote. 

In a follow-up email, Lenaerts’ chief of staff acknowledged that “it may not be easy for persons who experienced inappropriate behaviour to come forward”. But he adds that one must also take into account “the rights of the defendant”.

The long-term employee mentioned above feels these are weak excuses.

“The court should have more transparent ways of dealing with these issues, including of the judges,” he said. “Judges judging themselves: I don’t think it works.”

Leonie Kijewski contributed reporting. 

This article was updated on 23.07.2024 at 10:02.