BRUSSELS — One of the EU’s top courts is being asked to examine whether the European Parliament breached its legal obligations by denying lawmakers the chance to investigate the bloc’s handling of vaccine contracts.

According to a legal file, seen by POLITICO, the General Court has received a motion prepared by MEPs from right-wing and far-right parties that argues a decision by political group leaders on Sept. 3 to not allow a vote on the establishment of an investigative committee was unlawful.

The challenge is bring brought by lawmakers from the far-right Europe of Sovereign Nations and Patriots factions, as well as by the right-wing European Conservatives and Reformists group, which in April called on colleagues to support an inquiry into “allegations of corruption, money-laundering, abuse of power, undue interference in legislative processes.”

“More than 180 Members demanded an inquiry into how the EU handled billions in vaccine contracts and related dealings,” said ESN chief whip and Alternative for Germany politician Christine Anderson, who is named on the lawsuit. “The Parliament’s leadership has no right to silence that request.”

Court documents show the application was lodged on Oct. 31. The Parliament has until Nov. 20 to respond to the lawmakers’ request for an expedited ruling — if the ordinary procedure is followed, the issue could be under consideration for years.

The Parliament’s press service said it doesn’t comment on lodged or ongoing judicial cases.

Speaking on Monday, Patriots MEP Marieke Ehlers accused the Conference of Presidents — a meeting of political group chairs — of having blocked the establishment of the inquiry by not allowing a parliament-wide vote. “It’s not up to the group leaders to block an initiative that has its origin in giving individual members a particular right,” she said.

Parliamentarians have the power to establish Committees of Inquiry on Transparency and Accountability if they can collect enough signatures. The three MEPs behind the lawsuit argue parliamentary leaders violated the rules by killing off the proposal behind closed doors and failing to refer it to a full plenary vote.

The Parliament president and centrist groups currently submit any request for an inquiry committee to the conference of presidents before sending it to a plenary vote. That interpretation of the rules is being challenged by the right-wing lawmakers.

“The next step is now we are positioning the court to annul the decision and to prompt the President of the Parliament to put it up to a vote in the [plenary],” ESN’s Anderson told POLITICO. 

Inquiry committees are convened to look into allegations of wrongdoing by the EU’s institutions, including the powerful European Commission, which has faced bruising condemnation over its refusal to disclose correspondence with vaccine-maker Pfizer in recent months.

ECR lawmaker Charlie Weimers said “this is not a political issue for the court to consider, but rather a procedural, legal one where rules quite obviously were not followed … we are rather optimistic that this will go our way.”

Daniel Freund, a Green MEP who is typically outspoken against far-right initiatives, said the lawmakers “might have a point that, legally speaking, it should have probably been decided in plenary.”

“I’m not advocating that we now let the Patriots pester us with one committee after another,” Freund said. However, he cautioned that committees of inquiry are meant to be a tool by the opposition to scrutinize governance, and said the fact that the Parliament requires a majority of groups to support it in plenary defeats its purpose.