Judgment No. 2339
Decision
1. The impugned decision is set aside.
2. The EPO shall reclassify the complainant as if he had been classified in the career group for programmers B4-B6 as from 6 July 1999.
3. If necessary, it shall adjust his salary and other benefits accordingly.
4. It shall also pay him 1,000 euros in moral damages and 3,000 euros in costs.
Consideration 5
Extract:
"The Tribunal has consistently stressed the requirement that where a final decision refuses, to a staff member's detriment, to follow a favourable recommendation of the internal appeal body such decision must be fully and adequately motivated. ([...] see Judgments 2092, 2261 [...], 2347 and 2355.) It is not enough for the decision maker - in this case the President of the Office - simply to state that he is not convinced by the recommendation or to refer in general terms to the arguments presented by the Administration before the appeal body. Such statements do not adequately inform either the employee or the Tribunal as to the real reasons underlying the impugned decision. Nor do they show that the decision maker has properly fulfilled his duty to apply his own mind to the questions raised on the appeal and to give his own reasons for concluding as he has. It is not enough simply to endorse in broad terms all that the Administration, which, like the appellant, is subordinate to the President, has presented before the appeal body. The President is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity and he must be, and be seen to be, objective and impartial. At the very least, where it is intended to place reliance on arguments which are more fully set forth in some other document, that document must be precisely identified and a copy of the relevant passages should accompany the decision itself and be specifically endorsed as representing the President's own considered opinion which has been reached after the appellant's arguments have been placed before him."
Reference(s)
Jugement(s) TAOIT: 2092, 2261, 2347, 2355
Keywords
decision; duty to substantiate decision; internal appeals body; internal appeal; report; case law; organisation's duties; decision-maker; refusal; impugned decision; motivation; motivation of final decision
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