Judgment No. 1616
Decision
1. The Director General's decisions dated 15 December 1995 and those of 15 September 1995 on the cases of the four complainants are set aside.
2. The cases are sent back to the Director General for due decisions on the appeals.
3. The Observatory shall pay them the awards as set out under 8 and 9.
4. It shall pay each of them 1,000 dollars in costs.
5. Their other claims are dismissed.
Consideration 5
Extract:
The mere remittance of pay does not meet the requirement of notice "unless the parties to the contract of service agree that the employee should not work out the period of notice or the Organisation puts him on special leave during that period. Failing those exceptions the employee must be given actual notice so that he may make proper arrangements for leaving and possibly look for another job. It is inadmissible that any official, let alone an established one, should be told of dismissal on the very day on which it takes effect and left to his own devices without further ado."
Keywords
exception; organisation's duties; staff member's interest; contract; permanent appointment; compensatory allowance; termination of employment; notice; special leave; effect; purpose
Consideration 6
Extract:
"The provisions of the combined [Staff] Rules apply to international and local staff alike, and so any provision that applies to one category of staff and not to the other offends against those rules and is unlawful. Here the Director General had no authority to treat as a mere option the consultation of the Joint Board on Appeals from local staff: the combined [Staff] Rules apply to all staff and so does the duty those rules lay down. The rule under which the Director General exercised discretion was an unlawful one and he thereby committed a mistake of law."
Keywords
advisory body; precedence of rules; staff regulations and rules; local status; non-local status; consultation; discretion; executive head
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