2.3. Objection by a party to a board member or members

Most partiality proceedings are initiated by a party objecting to a board member under Art. 24(3) EPC. According to the established jurisprudence of the boards of appeal, if a party is to receive a fair hearing before a tribunal, such a party should have no reasonable ground (on an objective basis) to suspect that any member of the tribunal is partial or prejudiced in relation to deciding the case (cf. G 5/91, OJ 1992, 617; G 1/05 of 7 December 2006 date: 2006-12-07, OJ 2007, 362; T 433/93, OJ 1997, 509; T 95/04, T 283/03, T 1193/02).

Art. 24(3) EPC states that "members" of a board of appeal may be objected to by any party. In T 843/91 of 17 March 1993 date: 1993-03-17 (OJ 1994, 818) the board held that this implied that all the members of a board may be objected to, together or separately (see also T 1020/06 of 12 November 2008 date: 2008-11-28 in which all the members of the original board were replaced pursuant to Art. 24(4), second sentence, EPC 1973).