Judgment No. 3067
Decision
1. The decision of the Director of the CTA of 8 February 2010 rejecting the complainant's request for the appointment of a conciliator is set aside.
2. The case is referred back to the CTA in order that a conciliation procedure may be held as indicated under 25.
3. The Centre shall pay the complainant 2,000 euros as compensation for the injury caused by the delay in finally settling the case.
4. It shall also pay him costs in the amount of 1,000 euros.
5. The complainant's other claims are dismissed, as is the Centre's counterclaim.
Consideration 20
Extract:
"[T]he right to an internal appeal is a safeguard which international civil servants enjoy in addition to their right of appeal to a judicial authority. Consequently, save in cases where the staff member concerned forgoes the lodging of an internal appeal, an official should not in principle be denied the possibility of having the decision which he or she challenges effectively reviewed by the competent appeal body (see, for example, on this point, Judgment 2781, under 15)."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2781
Keywords
internal appeal; right of appeal; safeguard
Consideration 24
Extract:
"[T]he very purpose of a conciliation procedure, which is to endeavour to resolve a dispute between the parties amicably, implies that the conciliator may have to take account of considerations of fairness or advisability. In this respect, such a procedure is fundamentally different from proceedings before the Tribunal, whose task is plainly not to explore possible settlements between the parties and which essentially gives a ruling in law."
Keywords
settlement out of court; competence of tribunal; equity; difference; purpose
Judgment keywords
Keywords
complaint allowed; decision quashed; case sent back to organisation; delay in internal procedure; conciliation
Consideration 21
Extract:
[W]hen it appears that a complainant has been unlawfully denied the benefit of his or her right to an internal appeal, the Tribunal often decides – in some instances on its own initiative – to refer the case back to the organisation rather than examine its merits. A further consideration justifying this solution is that it is, of course, quite possible that a review of the impugned decision by internal appeal bodies will suffice to settle the dispute definitively. The Tribunal has already had occasion to refer cases back to an organisation, with a view to their being submitted to the competent appeal body, in a variety of circumstances similar to those of the instant case. In one case, the executive head of an organisation had not forwarded to the appeal body an appeal which he had misinterpreted (see Judgment 1007); in another, an appeal lodged with the competent body had wrongly been dismissed as being time-barred (see [...] Judgment 2781). This course of action is also frequently taken in cases where, even though a complainant’s internal appeal has been examined by the competent body, the Tribunal finds that this did not occur under satisfactory conditions, because not all the evidence was borne in mind, for example, or because of a procedural flaw, and it is therefore desirable that the matter should be resubmitted to the appeal body (see, for example, Judgments 999, 2341, 2370, 2424 or 2530).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 999, 1007, 2341, 2370, 2424, 2530, 2781
Keywords
internal appeal; case sent back to organisation
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