Infringement decisions (to act, not to act) decided and signed from Michael Shotter

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Secretariat General of the European Commission should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Secretariat General,

Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:

I am requesting all reported violations of EU law (either reported as letter or entered in the form http://ec.europa.eu/atwork/applying-eu-l... or in whatever form)
and which were dealt by DG JUST Michael Shotter and/or his department (people working for him).

Therefore I request
(1) the reported violation (at minimum the short description) and the 'alleged' violation, the country/countries reported as violators of EU law
(2) how it was reported (letter, form or otherwise)
(3) the date when it came in with an individual number to identify and that was used in the whole process
(4) all internal and external documents that were made in reference to the 'alleged' individual infringement including the paperwork to the country violating the law
(5) all meetings that have taken place to decide (meeting, date and time, who has joined; with at mimimum an agenda or a protocol or the meeting)
(6) the individual qualification of every person (who was dealing with a 'alleged' infringement) an infringement in that the department of Michael Shotter was partially involved or decided about. Re qualification,
(6a) what and where has the individual person, studied ? (university diploma etc)
(6b) is there a PhD or other publications of this person
(6c) has this person worked as lawyer and where, including the specialisation
(6d) has this person even been in in front of a judge or worked as judge and for how many cases and for how many years has this person dealt with a court. In what area was this person working there
(6e) has this person ever worked with EU law (in front of court)
(6f) has this person been active at the ECJ EU Court in Luxemburg and how was the person involved in court cases
(7) all PETI hearings refering to the individual infringement
(8) the final decision of the 'alleged' infringement individual by each case. The complete written decision.
(9) all agreements with the member state

If parts of the request take longer to prepare or to decide about I request an immediate answer for questions that can be answered immediately. A partial rejection cannot lead to a rejection of the full request.

I remind the EU Commission, that a FOI request for all infringements was rejected. Now I only request a part of these decisions,

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Secretariat General of the European Commission

Dear Mr Zinser

We acknowledge the reception of your e-mail below.
We are presently analysing whether your request will be treated as a request for documents or as a request for information.
We will come back to you with further information, as soon as possible.
Best regards

JUST ACCESS DOCUMENTS TEAM

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Secretariat General of the European Commission

 
Dear Mr Zinser,
 
Thank you for your message of 9 September 2015 which has been registered
and treated as a request for access to information; a reply to it is being
currently prepared.
 
Best regards,
Civil Justice Policy Unit
European Commission
 
 

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Dear Secretariat General,

may i remind you that my Freedom of Infirmation request is overdue. Who is working on it and when will you deliver the requested documents?

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

having received a letter from you which I quote here:

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ARES (2015) 4264329 Dated 13th Oct 2015 Acting Director-General JUST/A1/D(2015)4696627 ARES (2015)3886424 By registered mail with acknowledgement of receipt

"Dear Mr Zinser,
I write to you with regard to your e-mail of 9 September 2015 registered in ARES on 21 September 2015 with the number (2015)3886424 in which you ask the Commission for documents containing the following information concerning alleged violations of EU law, in particular:
1. the reported violation (at minimum the short description) and the 'alleged'violation, the countrylcountries reported as violators ofEU law
2. how it was reported (letter, form or otherwise)
3. the date when it came in with an individual number to identify and that was used in the whole process
4. all internal and external documents that were made in reference to the 'alleged' individual infringement including the paperwork to the country violating the law
5. all meetings that have taken place to decide (meeting, date and time, who has joined; with at minimum an agenda or a protocol or the meeting)
6. the individual qualification of every person (who was dealing with a 'alleged' infringement) an infringement in that the department ofMichael Shotter was partially involved or decided about. Re qualification,
(6a) what and where has the individual person, studied? (university diploma etc) (6b) is there a PhD or other publications o f this person
(6c) has this person worked as lawyer and where, including the specialisation (6d) has thisperson even been in infront ofajudge or workedasjudge andfor how many cases and for how many years has this person dealt with a court. 1n what area was this person working there
(6e) has this person ever worked with EU law (infront ofcourt)
(6.f) has this person been active at the ECJ EU Court in Luxemburg and how was the person involved in court cases
7. all PET! hearings referring to the individual infringement
8. the final decision o f the 'alleged' infringement individual by each case. The complete written decision.
9. all agreements with the member state.

It was decided to treat your request as a request for information as there are no falling under the scope of your request. As specified in Article 2 (3) of RegulatIOn (EC) 1049/2001, I must draw your attention to the fact that the right of access
to documents, as defined in that Regulation, applies only to existing documents in the possession ofthe institution.
Replying to your present request, and supplementing what was already explained to you in previous replies (in particular GESTDEM 2014/3459 and 3481), I can inform you that since being established in 2009 as DG Justice, the responsible unit of DG Justice and Consumers (as the DG is presently named) has dealt with 347 cases of complaints regarding civil justice policy, processed via the European Commission complaint handling system.
You specifically ask that we break down the cases by how reported, content, provide you with short descriptions of cases submitted alongside their specific numbers and inform you about Member States involved, the internal analysis carried out, the dialogue we had with Member States involved and the final outcome.
As you will understand, the disclosure of such detailed information would risk undermining not only the investigation powers o f the Commission, but also the necessary trust that needs to exist among all parties involved in such infringement cases. Whilst we cannot therefore provide you with the information requested, we can refer you to what was explained to you in a letter of the Commission Secretariat General departments (letter of 22/07/2015, ref Ares(2015)3068564). The Commission publishes yearly the Report on the monitoring of the application of EU law. The report provides among others an overview of the complaints received by the European Commission, of Commission's decisions and of Court judgements. The information is available by sector and by country. You can find the Annual reports under the following link: http://ec.europa.eulatworklapplying-eu-I... reports/index en.htm#.
Concerning the link between individual infringements and petitions, I would like to draw your attention on the fact that complaints are not necessarily mirrored by petitions lodged at the European Parliament. If you wish to examine the agendas of the hearings, the European Parliament makes available to the public its official documents related to petitions here: http://www.europarl.europa.eulcommittees....
You have been asking repeatedly for information about Commission staffworking in DG Justice and Consumers, their relevant tasks, experience and other personal data. I would like to refer to the reply given to you by the Secretary General in her reply to your request GESTDEM 2015/2031. You have been comprehensively informed about the reasons for which data concerning curriculum vitae, as constituting personal data in the meaning o f Article 2(a) o f the Data Protection Regulation, cannot be disclosed.
Moreover, I would like to underline that since 2010 the Commission has analysed in depth the matter concerning the enforcement of your custody and access judgment in the UK. Within the remit of the competence conferred on the Commission by the founding Treaties, including the powers to monitor the application of EU law by national authorities, we have carefully considered the matters you have raised in your letters including the possible infringement of the EU law by the UK. To this end, we have sent you over this period no less than 12 letters providing a detailed response. Most recently, you have also been informed about:
The work of the expert group on Brussels Ha Regulation; its establishment and composition;
- The consultation process conducted last year in the context of the review of the Regulation;
- The preparation of the evaluation study; and
- Transfer of a case to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
In addition, in the past two years the Commission has replied or is replying to 39 formal requests from you for access to documents, of which 19 were addressed to DG Justice and Consumers.
Whilst I appreciate that you find the circumstances of your case frustrating, as previously advised the only legal avenue open to you remains through the national courts having jurisdiction in your case, namely those of the United Kingdom. Even were an infringement to be identifiable (which is not here the case), the infringement procedure cannot serve as a means of reviewing national judicial decisions. This being so, I would ask you to consider what purpose can be served by your repeated cOlTespondence with the European Commission, which can only act within the limits of the powers given to it.
That being so, I have thus decided that any future correspondence with you concerning matters which have already been dealt with and explained to you at length shall be discontinued. In particular, the European Commission will reserve not to answer requests of information on issues for which you have already received a reply.
Regarding the message that you sent to the website "Lighten the load - Have your say" and registered in ARES on 29 September 2015 with the number (2015)3998149, since its content is a repetition of what you have already sent to the Commission, as well as being offensive in parts, I exercise the right to discontinue the exchange of correspondence with you in accordance with Chapter 4 (Dealing with Enquiries- COlTespondence) of the Code of Good Administrative Behaviour.
Finally, with regard to your requests for access to documents, I have also noted that all your requests are imposing on my services a workload which is excessive. In the last year, and just to deal with these requests, my services have spent around 250 working hours. Given that I have to ensure that the human resources of my services are used efficiently, I need to balance the time that they are spending dealing with all your requests with the wider responsibilities and tasks that need to be undertaken in the general interest. Therefore, I wish to draw your attention to the fact that my services will when relevant, make an extensive use of Article 6(3) of Regulation (EC) 1049/2001 on Access to Documents which contemplates the possibility to reach a fair solution.

Yours sincerely, Paraskevi Michou"

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(There could be some errors as I used OCR recognition)

I am very surprised and I don't accept this decision/paper.

The signature on the paper is not from Mrs Paraskevi Michou. Kindly let me know who has signed this paper ?

After I have this information I will decide how I react. Therefore I also request that the time limit is kept open (cannot expire and will be extended until I have the answer).

As soon I have this information I will also decide to make a request for internal review (that option has to be kept open).

Regards,
Klaus Zinser
P.S. I also request that you send the original paper to asktheu.org so that EU citizens see how fathers are treated who fight for regular and proper contact with their natural children where I still suspect a violation of EU law.

Dear Secretariat General,

I am still waiting for an answer.

Also I remind you "The signature on the paper is not from Mrs Paraskevi Michou. Kindly let me know who has signed this paper ?" This could be illegal.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

whilst Paraskevi Michou and Michael Shotter have left DG JUST I am still waiting for answers.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

the anonymous Michael Shotter (no CV etc) who is a British lawyer has left the organization. He was promoted into the cabinet Jucker where his previous colleague Martin Selmayr (under Viviane Reding) is working, too.

Nevertheless, I kindly remind you to answer this FOI request.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

i am still waiting for an answer. Kindly let me know your historic deadline until you should have answered (calendar date) and let me know when you will answer (calendar date).

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser

Dear Secretariat General,

there was no reply from your side. Kindly let me know the current status.

Yours faithfully,

Klaus Zinser