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Further light on the problem with Advocate Generals' opinions has been quickly provided by the head of the EUR-Lex unit in OPOCE, Pascale Berteloot. She gives a fuller explanation of how case law is currently treated in EUR-Lex, and of the improvements that are planned. Here is a slightly edited version of her response, with emphasis added, and with my interpolated comments: ************************************ EUR-Lex is a fully documentary database, which means that all documents are linked to metadata or better to the entire documentary and legal analysis of the documents, the bibliographic notices. This means that the metadata are managed independently of the documents themselves. The metadata include the document in a specific format used to index the documents. Case law: the documentary and legal analysis of the documents is provided by the Court itself. These data (for the judgment itself and the related opinion of the Advocate General) are delivered more or less one week after the judgment, which means that for several months the opinions are in the database as a document but without metadata or notice. [This means that until the judgment is delivered, the AG Opinion is available in the browsable Case Law collection, but can not be found via Simple Search.] The first progress we made by September 2005 was to introduce an early access to opinions of Advocates General (now normally sent to us by the Court the day they are delivered), while previously they were made available only when the judgment itself became available. We have now for the last six months created a short set of metadata [for these opinions]. However, these are not available for the moment in the documentary part of the database [which is the part that can be searched] Our intention is to have them as soon as possible in this documentary part and the problem you faced will no longer exist. Names of parties [Why is the 'Parties' search option disabled?] The option "Parties" has not been developed so far, as we are specifying it in cooperation with the Court. This option might also be a problem with regard to the personal data protection directive. We take note of your wish for a guidance in this respect. Joined cases [Why are all the case numbers of 'joined cases' not indexed and searchable?] The metadata of joined cases do not reflect all case numbers. That would mean that all notices of joined cases would have to be corrected. We are aware of the problem and have already mentioned it to the Court. ************************************ So we can expect that locating opinions of Advocates General in EUR-Lex will get easier eventually, though some of the desirable improvements may take quite a while to implement. In the meantime, it seems a pity that the current limitations of the system are not drawn to the attention of EUR-Lex users. Chris Lamb CORDIS Brussels -----Original Message----- From: European Documentation Centres (EDC) [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Suzanne White Sent: 09 March 2006 14:27 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: FW: Eur-lex This is the reply from OPOCE Helpdesk about why the Advocate General's Opinion was not easily found on Eurlex. Suzanne White -----Original Message----- From: OPOCE HELPDESK ONLINE [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: 09 March 2006 13:19 To: Suzanne White Subject: RE: Eur-lex Dear Ms White, Once you have connected EUR-Lex at <http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex> and chosen "simple search", you simply ask for Caulfiekld (to be understood as a word in the title). You will get the only notice the EUR-Lex archive is able to offer: Case C-257/04: Reference for a preliminary ruling by the Court of Appeal (England and Wales), Civil Division, by order of that court dated 15 June 2004, in the cases of Michael Jason Clarke against Frank Staddon Ltd and J.C. Caulfield, C.F. Caulfield and K.V. Barnes against Marshalls Clay Products Ltd Official Journal C 217 , 28/08/2004 P. 0013 - 0013 This means that the texts relating to this case have not yet been sent by the European Court of Justice (texts intended for publication to the European Court Reports). The reason why can be searched from teh Website of teh European Court of Justice (<http://curia.eu.int>) : we can see there taht this is a pending case. So no official documents are currently available. I wish this to help. Best regards, Claudine Tayot Publications Office Dissemination unit - helpdesk -----Original Message----- From: Suzanne White [mailto:[log in to unmask]] Sent: mercredi 8 mars 2006 14:45 To: OPOCE HELPDESK ONLINE Subject: FW: Eur-lex Please note that I had the following problem trying to find Advocate General's opinion on Eur-lex. Best wishes Suzanne White -----Original Message----- From: Suzanne White Sent: 07 March 2006 11:59 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Eur-lex Hello all, I was trying to help a lecturer find an Advocate General's opinion on Caulfield v Marshalls Clay Products using the new Eur-lex. There is an option on Simple Search to narrow the search down to Advocate General's opinions however I couldn't find this particular one. I just Googled it and of course found the opinion on Emplaw in full. Does anyone know why I was unable to locate the case on Eurlex even if I tried searching once I knew the date? Has anyone had similar problems? Suzanne White Coventry University * You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the EIA list Eurotalk - this list is for EIA members only. * To send a message to the list email [log in to unmask] * When going on holiday or out of the office don't forget to temporarily disable your mail. Send SET * NOMAIL to [log in to unmask] (NOT [log in to unmask]). This command sets NOMAIL for ALL lists you are subscribed to. * On your return catch-up by reading the online archives at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/eurotalk.html * For general help and FAQs on using jiscmail go to http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/help/using/qa.htm