Judgment 1541
81st Session, 1996
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
"Refusal to answer an appeal is not obstruction: the litigant may still appeal to the Tribunal against the implied rejection. [...] Moreover, the President of the Office pleads the need to keep down the amount of internal litigation so as not to overload the administration with pointless work and expenditure. He has thereby assessed the Organisation's interests and made an exercise of discretion with which the Tribunal may not interfere in the circumstances of this case."
Keywords:
complaint; direct appeal to tribunal; discretion; executive head; failure to answer claim; iloat statute; implied decision; internal appeal; internal remedies exhausted; judicial review; organisation's duties; organisation's interest; procedure before the tribunal; right of appeal;
Judgment 1451
79th Session, 1995
Universal Postal Union
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 20
Extract:
"The [amendment in question] strikes out of the terms of employment ipso facto the safeguard of international judicial review and vests jurisdiction in municipal courts instead. The amendment brings about an immediate and almost irreversible change in the system of appeal. So [...] every staff member has an actual and present interest in having light shed on the matter. The Tribunal affords guarantees of a system of international law within the bounds of its competence: see Judgments 1265, under 24, and 1328, under 13. It would therefore be wrong to deny the staff the right of appeal on the grounds that the impugned decision is general in purport."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1265, 1328
Keywords:
amendment to the rules; case law; cause of action; competence of tribunal; complaint; general decision; internal appeal; municipal court; receivability of the complaint; right of appeal; safeguard; staff regulations and rules; tribunal;
Judgment 1443
79th Session, 1995
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 6
Extract:
"The organisation asks the Tribunal to declare his complaint to be an obvious abuse of the right to appeal, though it does not make any formal counterclaim. The EPO is mistaken. All that the complainant did was exercise his right to appeal; [the rule under challenge was] so vague as to prompt many internal appeals, and, however they fared, they were quite understandable."
Keywords:
counterclaim; criteria; right of appeal; vexatious complaint;
Judgment 1418
78th Session, 1995
Universal Postal Union
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 20
Extract:
"The Tribunal is satisfied on the evidence that the Union did not break the rules of due process. Indeed [the complainant] has had unfettered access to the channels for internal appeal under the Staff Regulations, since he put his case to the Joint Appeals Committee before coming to the Tribunal."
Keywords:
internal appeals body; judicial review; right of appeal; right to reply;
Judgment 1413
78th Session, 1995
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 5
Extract:
"[The complainant's] claim to a higher grade is irreceivable. Even if her career did suffer delay she may not seek redress on that account in the context of the choice of career path; nor may she impugn any decision that she failed to challenge in time or object to her grading as administrative assistant."
Keywords:
assignment; career; complaint; delay; post classification; promotion; receivability of the complaint; right of appeal; time bar; time limit;
Judgment 1408
78th Session, 1995
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 8
Extract:
"The decision not to allow the abatement of internal tax had a continuing effect which was reflected in each of the complainant's payslips."
Keywords:
date of notification; decision; payslip; right of appeal; time limit;
Judgment 1407
78th Session, 1995
World Tourism Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 18
Extract:
The complainant says that her transfer amounted to a hidden disciplinary measure to get back at her because she asserted her right of appeal. "The Tribunal is satisfied that there was no question of disciplinary action": she herself applied for the transfer and it cost her no loss of pay or grade or responsibility. "Nor does she allege any loss of dignity in the duties she had to perform."
Keywords:
amendment to the rules; disciplinary measure; grade; hidden disciplinary measure; moral injury; right of appeal; salary; transfer;
Judgment 1399
78th Session, 1995
European Organization for Nuclear Research
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 8
Extract:
"As the Tribunal acknowledged in Judgment 885, an organisation may find it awkward in all sorts of ways to defend its case when a complainant is stubbornly bent on indiscriminate exercise of the right of appeal. But the issues the present complainant has raised are not such that the Tribunal sees his complaint as any abuse of his right of appeal. That right is a safeguard for organisation and staff alike and the exercise of it is to be denied only in extreme and quite exceptional cases."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 885
Keywords:
organisation's interest; right of appeal; safeguard; staff member's interest; vexatious complaint;
Consideration 10
Extract:
"Inasmuch as Rule VI 1.01 [of the Staff Regulations] confers the right of appeal on 'every member of the personnel' it may be that someone does forfeit that right on leaving the organization and so ceasing to be a staff member provided that the issues they are objecting to or the decisions they are challenging did not occur before they left. There is no danger thereby of any miscarriage of justice since [...] a former official who alleges breach of contract or of the rules he was subject to may still come to the Tribunal."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: CERN STAFF REGULATION VI 1.01
Keywords:
competence of tribunal; former official; internal appeal; locus standi; ratione personae; right of appeal; staff regulations and rules; status of complainant;
Judgment 1392
78th Session, 1995
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 36
Extract:
The complainant objects to the actuarial method which the organisation used in a study of the pension fund's foreseeable costs. "Like any public authority, the EPO enjoys a presumption in its favour - especially when it is taking technical measures and it has done thorough preparatory work - that its choice of actuarial method is the most suitable and the fairest. [...] It is of course open to a staff member under a system of administrative law to challenge the organisation's choice, but he must be able to adduce evidence to show why the chosen method, when compared with others, may suffer from technical flaws that should have disqualified it."
Keywords:
actuarial valuation; burden of proof; contributions; discretion; evidence; increase; judicial review; mistake of fact; organisation; pension; reckoning; right of appeal;
Judgment 1391
78th Session, 1995
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 12
Extract:
The complainant was subject to disciplinary action for statements, some of them before the Tribunal, which allegedly impaired the organisation's and the Tribunal's reputations. "Disciplinary action will be justified only if the staff member's conduct amounts to abuse of process or to a perversion of the right ofappeal. Such, for example, will be the case if his allegations 'are clearly wholly unfounded' (see Judgment 99 [...]); or if he appeals 'to the Tribunal for the purpose of lending force to the wild and unnecessarily wounding allegations [...] repeatedly made against the organisation' and has thereby 'entirely perverted from its proper purpose the right of appeal' to the Tribunal and has 'affronted the dignity of his organisation and of the Tribunal (see Judgment 96 [...]); or if his actions 'could neither have been directed to defending [his] freedom and rights, however widely interpreted, nor [...] make the slightest contribution to the disposal of the proceedings' (see Judgment 111 [...])."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 96, 99, 111
Keywords:
case law; conduct; criteria; disciplinary measure; organisation's reputation; right of appeal; vexatious complaint;
Judgment 1383
78th Session, 1995
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 7-10
Extract:
The organization contends that the Tribunal lacks competence to hear a complaint from a "temporary adviser", whose status does not imply the right of appeal. But the Tribunal finds that the organization has described her "as holding an appointment as [a] short-term consultant. [...] Her contract was for a total of over ninety days, she was therefore not a 'temporary advisory' whithin the meaning of [WHO Manual paragraph] II.12.590." holding a "temporary short-term appointment as a consultant [...] she therefore qualified as a 'staff member'" with the right to appeal. "The rules draw no distinction between 'regular' staff members and the holders of temporary appointments."
Reference(s)
Organization rules reference: WHO MANUAL PARAGRAPH II.12.590
Keywords:
duration of appointment; external collaborator; internal appeal; locus standi; ratione personae; receivability of the complaint; right of appeal; short-term; staff member; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1376
77th Session, 1994
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 13
Extract:
The purpose of Headquarters Board of Appeal's rules of procedure is "to promote the expeditious and orderly hearing of appeals, not to deprive appellants of any right of appeal conferred on them by the Staff Rules."
Keywords:
due process; internal appeal; internal appeals body; organisation's duties; purpose; right of appeal; staff member's interest; staff regulations and rules; time limit;
Consideration 13
Extract:
"According to the case law - see for example Judgment 607 [...] under 8 - though the rules on internal appeals must be respected because proper administration so requires, 'they are not supposed to be a trap or a means of catching out a staff member who acts in good faith'."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 607
Keywords:
case law; good faith; internal appeal; internal remedies exhausted; organisation's duties; organisation's interest; right of appeal; staff member's interest; time limit;
Judgment 1369
77th Session, 1994
European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 17-18
Extract:
It is in the light of such precepts that the Tribunal rules below on the case of Eurocontrol. After years of conflict with the staff and a spate of litigation uncertain in outcome and - as the Director General properly observed - adverse in effect, Eurocontrol came round to a cooperative approach by concluding the agreement of 9 January 1992. By virtue of its contractual nature it is a source of law which in the interests of both sides the Tribunal regards as material.
Eurocontrol is right in pleading that the collective procedure set up under the agreement cannot supersede each staff member's defence of his own rights. A collective agreement, even though concluded with staff associations acknowledged to be representative, does not divest the staff member of the safeguards he enjoys under the Staff Regulations. By the same token there is nothing to keep him from relying on a collective agreement even if, not being a member of a staff association, he is not himself privy to it. Such indeed are consequences that flow from freedom of association and the principle of equal treatment.
Keywords:
collective agreement; collective rights; equal treatment; freedom of association; right of appeal; safeguard; staff member's interest; staff regulations and rules; staff union; staff union agreement;
Consideration 16
Extract:
An international organisation is "free to choose whatever methods or means it likes - be they formal rules or contracts of employment - to define the terms of appointment of staff. But any collective agreement it does conclude becomes part of the law of the international civil service. Signing such an agreement puts it under obligations in law; a member of its staff may plead such obligations in a complaint to the Tribunal; and the Tribunal will review compliance with the letter and spirit of the agreement."
Keywords:
collective agreement; collective rights; international civil service principles; judicial review; organisation's duties; organisation's interest; right; right of appeal; staff union agreement; working conditions; written rule;
Consideration 28
Extract:
"The duty to explain a decision is a general principle of administrative law: the decision-maker must at least give such statement of the reasons for the decision that anyone it affects may defend his rights and the Tribunal may rule on any case before it. But the content of the duty will vary with the nature of the decision."
Keywords:
duty to substantiate decision; general principle; judicial review; motivation; motivation of final decision; purport; right of appeal; right to reply;
Judgment 1362
77th Session, 1994
World Intellectual Property Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 9
Extract:
"The constant thrust of the three earlier judgments was to secure from the organization [...] discharge of its obligation to communicate to [the complainant] a proper decision. He might then impugn that decision if it was not to his liking, and the Tribunal might if need be review the reasons for it, which is something it has not yet been able to do. The complainant is entitled to such decision as a matter of course, without having to ask for it and without delay. That obligation WIPO has stubbornly ignored, it is in breach of the rule of law in the international civil service, and that is not to be brooked."
Keywords:
application for execution; continuing breach; execution of judgment; express decision; international civil service principles; judgment of the tribunal; judicial review; organisation's duties; right of appeal;
Judgment 1339
77th Session, 1994
World Health Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 12
Extract:
"An official's acceptance of the regulations and rules does not preclude his arguing that some provision of them is discriminatory as it affects him. If the organization's argument were sustained, no staff member would be free to challenge a rule. The complainant is entitled to found his case on the plea of discrimination even though in the event it proves unsuccessful."
Keywords:
acceptance; equal treatment; provision; right of appeal; staff member's interest; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1330
76th Session, 1994
International Labour Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 8
Extract:
The complainants regard as a breach of their acquired rights an amendment to the Staff Regulations whose effect is to confer on the United Nations Administrative Tribunal competence for disputes concerning the reckoning of pensionable remuneration. But the Tribunal "cannot treat an amendment to the rules on competence as 'loss of an essential legal safeguard'. After all, with the new text competence goes to an independent and impartial international administrative tribunal."
Keywords:
acquired right; amendment to the rules; competence; competence of tribunal; pension; pensionable remuneration; right of appeal; safeguard; staff regulations and rules; unat;
Judgment 1328
76th Session, 1994
World Intellectual Property Organization
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 13
Extract:
"The possibility of cancellation of WIPO's recognition of the Tribunal's jurisdiction calls for no comment save that making an international organisation's decisions subject to judicial review affords a basic safeguard both of its own interests and of staff rights."
Keywords:
application for execution; competence of tribunal; declaration of recognition; judicial review; organisation's interest; right of appeal; safeguard; staff member's interest;
Judgment 1317
76th Session, 1994
International Telecommunication Union
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Considerations 31 and 34
Extract:
"An internal appeal procedure that works properly is an important safeguard of staff rights and social harmony in an international organisation [...]. The Union is wholly to blame for [the material] shortcomings. The Appeal Board is set up under the Staff Regulations and the [organisation] has a duty to keep it at all times in proper working order."
Keywords:
administrative delay; internal appeal; internal appeals body; organisation's duties; right of appeal; safeguard;
Consideration 23
Extract:
"Consistent precedent has it that even where an organisation's Staff Regulations say that a fixed-term contract is ipso facto extinguished on expiry non-renewal is to be treated as a distinct and challengeable administrative decision." After referring to Judgments 17 and 1040, the Tribunal observes that "that requirement is an indispensable safeguard of security of employment in the international civil service, which indeed, unlike many national civil services and some regional organisations, commonly grants fixed-term appointments."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 17, 1040
Keywords:
case law; contract; decision; domestic law; fixed-term; international civil service principles; non-renewal of contract; notice; right of appeal; safeguard; staff regulations and rules;
Judgment 1315
76th Session, 1994
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 8
Extract:
Vide Judgments 1147, consideration 4, and 1269, consideration 13.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1147, 1269
Keywords:
case law; collective rights; iloat statute; locus standi; right of appeal; staff regulations and rules; staff representative; staff union;
Judgment 1269
75th Session, 1993
European Patent Organisation
Extracts: EN,
FR
Full Judgment Text: EN,
FR
Consideration 14
Extract:
Having held that an official might act in his capacity as representative of the Staff Association in furtherance of common interests before the Tribunal, the Tribunal holds that "it is only fair to acknowledge a similar right for a staff member who, while defending his own case, is also pursuing some particular common interest that the Service Regulations safeguard", even after resigning.
Keywords:
locus standi; resignation; right of appeal; staff regulations and rules; staff representative;
Consideration 13
Extract:
"As a staff representative he was filing suit both for himself and in the common interest. Since neither the Service Regulations of the EPO nor the Statute of the Tribunal allow staff associations as such to file suit, the only way for them to safeguard their interests is for individual officials to act as their representatives in furtherance of the common rights and interests of the whole or part of the staff. In Judgment 1147 the Tribunal held, under 3 and 4, that an EPO staff member might in such circumstances act in his capacity as chairman of the Staff Committee."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1147
Keywords:
case law; iloat statute; locus standi; right of appeal; staff regulations and rules; staff representative;
