Judgment No. 3356
Decision
1. The decision of the Director General of Eurocontrol determining the pensionable years contested by the complainant and the decisions dismissing his request for a review of that decision and his internal complaint are set aside.
2. The case shall be referred back to Eurocontrol in order that the pensionable years in question may be determined by the method prescribed in consideration 25.
3. Eurocontrol shall pay the complainant costs in the amount of 3,000 euros.
4. All other claims are dismissed.
Summary
After the transfer of his pension rights acquired under a national scheme to the Organisation’s pension scheme, the complainant successfully challenges the refusal to recalculate the number of pensionable years credited to him.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
complaint allowed; decision quashed; case sent back to organisation; pension entitlements
Consideration 15
Extract:
"[I]t should be recalled that the rules governing the receivability of complaints before the Tribunal are established exclusively by its own Statute. In particular, the possibility of lodging a complaint against an implied rejection is governed solely by the provisions of Article VII, paragraph 3, of the Statute, which states that an official may file a complaint “[w here the Administration fails to take a decision upon any claim of an official within sixty days from the notification of the claim to it”. When an organisation forwards a claim before the expiry of the prescribed period of sixty days to the competent advisory appeal body, this step itself constitutes “a decision upon [the] claim” within the meaning of these provisions, which forestalls an implied rejection which could be referred to the Tribunal (see, on these points, Judgments 532, 762, 786, 2681 or 3034)."
Reference(s)
Jugement(s) TAOIT: 532, 762, 786, 2681, 3034
Keywords
direct appeal to tribunal
Consideration 16
Extract:
"[B]y an express decision [...], the Director General subsequently dismissed the complainant’s internal complaint after the Joint Committee for Disputes had issued a divided opinion. As the complainant took care in his rejoinder to impugn this express decision, the complaint must be deemed to be directed against it."
Keywords
impugned decision
Considerations 18 and 19
Extract:
"It [...] took the view that, in accordance with the principle that the Tribunal’s judgments produce their effects only between the parties, the complainant, who was neither a complainant nor an intervener in any of the cases giving rise to those three judgments, could not rely on the rights which those judgments conferred on their beneficiaries.
This reasoning per se is certainly entirely consistent with the Tribunal’s long-established case law, as confirmed, for example, in similar cases in Judgments 2463, under 13, 3002, under 14 and 15, or 3181, under 9 and 10."
Reference(s)
Jugement(s) TAOIT: 2463, 3002, 3181
Keywords
effect
Consideration 21
Extract:
"This sole argument is [...] unsound. [T]he use of the future tense in the French version of the sentence in question might well, or more naturally, be taken to express a sequential relationship between the opening up of the possibility to effect a transfer and the lodging of the official’s application [...]. Moreover, it is well established in the Tribunal’s case law that when the regulations or rules of an international organisation are ambiguous they must in principle be construed in favour of
the interests of its staff and not those of the organisation itself (see, for example, Judgments 1755, under 12, 2276, under 4, or 2396, under 3(a))."
Reference(s)
Jugement(s) TAOIT: 1755, 2276, 2396
Keywords
interpretation
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