Impartiality (716,-666)

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Keywords: Impartiality
Total judgments found: 16

• Judgment 4662

  
  136th Session, 2023
  International Criminal Police Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant contests the Secretary General’s decision to reject her application for voluntary departure and her claim for compensation for “legitimate resignation”.

  Consideration 13

  Extract:

  As regards the alleged breach of her right to an effective internal appeal due to a lack of impartiality on the part of the Joint Appeals Committee, the Tribunal observes that the complainant’s submissions on this point refer mainly to the fact that the member representing the staff did not issue a dissenting opinion in the face of the numerous egregious flaws in the process before the Committee. However, settled case law has it that the complainant bears the burden of proving allegations of lack of impartiality and, in this case, the complainant clearly does not adduce the requisite proof. Mere suspicions and allegations unsupported by tangible evidence are insufficient (see Judgment 4553, consideration 7).

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 4553
  

  Keywords:

  burden of proof; impartiality; internal appeals body;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4594

  
  135th Session, 2023
  European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant seeks the cancellation of a competition in which she took part.

  Consideration 10

  Extract:

  [T]he complainant [...] alleges that there was a conflict of interest affecting one of the members of the Selection Board, as that member was the supervisor of one candidate.
  The Tribunal recalls that a lack of impartiality, a bias or a conflict of interest on the part of members of a collegiate body such as a selection board may not be presumed. Any allegation of such matters must therefore be supported by tangible evidence (see, inter alia, Judgments 4451, consideration 16, 4408, consideration 22, and 3438, consideration 8). The mere fact, relied on in the present case, that the supervisor of one candidate was a member of the Selection Board cannot, in itself, be regarded as constituting a conflict of interest. In addition, since the complainant merely makes generalised assertions without adducing any tangible or specific evidence to establish the existence of a conflict of interest on the part of the member of the Selection Board in question, those assertions must be rejected.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3438, 4408, 4451
  

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality; personal prejudice; selection board;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4447

  
  133rd Session, 2022
  International Olive Council
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the withdrawal of some of her functions, arguing that such removal amounted to de facto demotion.

  Consideration 10

  Extract:

  The evidence does not reveal that the Joint Committee was not constituted in accordance with Article 2 of its Procedure. Nonetheless, its composition bears out the complainant’s observation that it could not be seen as an internal appeal body which was objective or impartial owing to the “contamination between professional tasks” and the overlapping of roles and functions. […] The Tribunal concludes that the obvious close administrative roles of some of the members of the Joint Committee violated the complainant’s right to have her internal appeal heard by a properly functioning body.

  Keywords:

  composition of the internal appeals body; impartiality;
  

  Consideration 12

  Extract:

  [I]t is anomalous that a Legal Department, which is responsible for presenting the organization’s defence to a staff member’s internal appeal, should appear to work in concert with the appeal body (in this case the Joint Committee) whose duty is to fairly hold the balance of justice between the parties. The IOC’s statement that the complainant provides no evidence that the Legal Department gave any kind of orders to the external lawyer is of no moment.

  Keywords:

  impartiality; internal appeals body;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4368

  
  131st Session, 2021
  International Olive Council
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the cancellation of a competition procedure in which she participated.

  Consideration 16

  Extract:

  [T]he complainant [...] rightly contends that her appeal to the Joint Committee was not considered, at least in appearance, in compliance with the essential requirements as to impartiality.
  First, the written evidence shows that a member of that Committee – who, according to the complainant’s undisputed assertion, was the spouse of the only other candidate participating in the contested competition, and whose disqualification the complainant had requested for that very reason – took part in hearing the case in question. The Tribunal considers that this member faced, in the circumstances of the case, a conflict of interest that required him to withdraw. The practical difficulties put forward by the organisation to justify the fact that he did not do so cannot be accepted, particularly as the member in question had an alternate.
  Second, the Joint Committee had, as already stated, asked the head of the Legal Department to provide it with an opinion in connection with its examination of the complainant’s appeal. However, as a member of the Committee pointed out in a dissenting opinion, that request breached the principle of impartiality since, in particular, that official was herself involved in managing competitions and, above all, she had at the same time been appointed to represent the Executive Director before the Joint Committee in that case.

  Keywords:

  impartiality; internal appeals body; recusal;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4318

  
  130th Session, 2020
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant contests his objectives for the reporting exercise January to December 2015 and the composition of the Appeals Committee that issued the opinion on the basis of which the impugned decision was taken.

  Consideration 8

  Extract:

  The complainant asserts that the Chair of the Appeals Committee was not impartial as she twice put his internal appeal on the agenda for summary proceedings. The Tribunal finds this claim of lack of impartiality to be unsubstantiated. The Appeals Committee is entitled to use the summary procedure in accordance with the [rules].

  Keywords:

  impartiality; internal appeals body;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4279

  
  130th Session, 2020
  European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to reject her internal complaint of psychological harassment.

  Considerations 3-4

  Extract:

  [T]he complainant submits [...] that the two investigators who were appointed by the Director General to investigate her complaint [...] did not offer the requisite guarantees of impartiality.
  [...]
  The investigators appointed in this case were the Director of the Maastricht Upper Airspace Control Centre [...] and the Agency’s Head of Internal Audit. Since the departments headed by those two senior Eurocontrol’s officials did not come under the Directorate of Resources, the complainant is plainly wrong in contending that they were under the authority of Mr V. The Tribunal notes, moreover, that the officials in question considered it important to certify in their report that they did not have a reporting relationship with any of the parties to the dispute. While it is true that they were answerable to the Director General for the performance of their ordinary professional duties, that did not preclude them, in this case, from being entrusted with the investigation of the complaint in question, which was not directed against the Director General.
  Theoretically, it would doubtless have been preferable, as the Director General himself admitted in his decision of 15 May 2017, to entrust the investigation into the harassment complaint against the Principal Director of Resources to a person outside Eurocontrol. The investigators in fact acknowledged that they had experienced some “discomfort” in having to investigate Mr V.’s conduct. It is furthermore regrettable that the Rule of Application, which, under the Article 12a of the Staff Regulations, was to lay down the implementing provisions for that article, had not yet been adopted when the harassment complaint at issue was made, as the Rule did not come into force until 23 May 2017.
  However, the fact remains that these two officials – who had, in compliance with the requirements of Article 4.8 of the aforementioned Policy, received training in conducting an investigation before they took on that assignment – provided all the guarantees necessary to assume the responsibility entrusted to them.
  In this regard, the Tribunal points out that, contrary to what the complainant appears to argue in referring to Judgments 3071, 3337 and 3660, which she misinterprets, its case law does not require investigations into harassment to be entrusted to a standing investigative body specifically established for that purpose. For the relevant requirements to be met, it suffices that such investigations are carried out by completely independent investigators.
  That was the case here, since the arguments, put forward in passing by the complainant, that the independence of one of the investigators was compromised by his holding an appointment for a limited period or that he was disqualified from conducting an investigation because he himself had been the subject of a harassment complaint in the past, are irrelevant.
  Moreover, the excerpts from the investigation report and the records of the interviews on the file lead the Tribunal to consider that the complaint was investigated by the investigators with complete impartiality.

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality; inquiry; investigation;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4257

  
  129th Session, 2020
  European Patent Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges his staff report for 2014.

  Consideration 17

  Extract:

  If an official involved in the preparation of a staff report is not impartial and that can be demonstrated by prior conduct, the fact that the conduct took place some years earlier does not render that prior conduct irrelevant when assessing partiality. Partiality is not necessarily periodic or episodic and can be enduring. In addition, it may be doubted that the Appraisals Committee could, without investigating the matter itself, simply rely on a short letter from management to satisfactorily deal with the question of partiality.

  Keywords:

  impartiality; performance evaluation;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4243

  
  129th Session, 2020
  World Intellectual Property Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the dismissal of her complaint of discrimination and harassment.

  Consideration 9

  Extract:

  [T]he mere fact that the Assistant Director General is ordinarily under the authority of the Director General is insufficient to call his impartiality into question, since there is no evidence that he had received any instructions from the Director General.

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4240

  
  129th Session, 2020
  World Health Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to reassign her to the post of Senior Advisor on Innovative Strategic Information, Strategic Information and Evaluation Department.

  Consideration 10

  Extract:

  The Tribunal’s case law states that it is a general rule of law that an official who is called upon to take a decision affecting the rights or duties of other persons subject to her or his jurisdiction must withdraw in cases in which her or his impartiality may be open to question on reasonable grounds. It further states that it is immaterial that, subjectively, the official may consider herself or himself able to take an unprejudiced decision; nor is it enough for the persons affected by the decision to suspect its author of prejudice (see, for example, Judgment 3958, consideration 11). The Tribunal finds that the evidence which the complainant provides to support the allegation of conflict of interest may raise a suspicion. However, it does not provide reasonable grounds on which to hold that the Executive Director’s impartiality may have been open to question.

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 3958
  

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 4234

  
  129th Session, 2020
  International Office of Epizootics
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to dismiss him.

  Consideration 3

  Extract:

  The proposal to dismiss the complainant was drawn up by the Director General and was introduced by the OIE’s counsel at the Council’s meeting. It is not disputed that the Director General and his Deputy did not leave the meeting room after the complainant was heard. The OIE explains in this regard that although those two senior officials are not members of the Council, the applicable rules state that they have to attend its meetings in order, among other reasons, to provide secretarial support. According to the Organisation, they “facilitated” the rest of the meeting but did not participate in the actual deliberations. These explanations are confirmed by the minutes of the meeting of the Council on 1 October 2015, which the Tribunal has examined in camera.
  However, the fact remains that, under a general rule of law which is not unique to the international civil service, a person called upon to take a decision affecting the rights or duties of other persons subject to her or his authority must withdraw in cases in which her or his impartiality may be open to question on reasonable grounds. The duty to act impartially is incumbent not only on the authority competent for issuing the final decision, but also on bodies responsible for making a recommendation to this authority (see Judgments 2667, consideration 5, and 3958, consideration 11).
  The circumstance that the complainant had initiated criminal proceedings against the Director General was liable to cast doubt on the latter’s impartiality, particularly because in this case the disciplinary action had been taken more than six months after the events and shortly after the submission of the request for compensation for harassment. The Tribunal observes in this respect that the proposal for a disciplinary measure was issued on the same day that the request for compensation for moral harassment was rejected. In these particular circumstances, the Director General ought to have entrusted the matter to the next most senior official whose impartiality could not be disputed (see Judgment 3958, consideration 13).

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 2667, 3958
  

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 3732

  
  123rd Session, 2017
  Universal Postal Union
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR
  Summary: The complainant challenges the decision to dismiss his allegations of harassment and abuse of authority as unfounded.

  Consideration 3

  Extract:

  The Tribunal is of the opinion that the contested JAC member could not be a member of the JAC assessing the complainant’s appeal if he had been interviewed by the Internal Auditor, since the JAC had to assess the testimonies on which the Internal Auditor’s report was based. His impartiality may be open to question (see Judgment 2671, under 10) as there are reasonable grounds for concluding that there was an actual conflict of interest, not merely a perceived conflict (see Judgment 2225, under 19).

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 2225, 2671
  

  Keywords:

  conflict of interest; impartiality; internal appeals body;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 2615

  
  102nd Session, 2007
  European Organization for Nuclear Research
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Consideration 5

  Extract:

  This explanation is hardly satisfactory [i.e. “[t]he fact that the Finance Committee did not have a copy of the actuarial review or an opportunity to hear a presentation from the actuary […] cannot have a bearing on the lawfulness of the Council’s decision. Indeed […] according to the applicable rules and regulations, it is the Governing Board that must receive and discuss actuarial reviews of the Pension Fund. The Finance Committee and the CERN Council are informed of its opinion and decide whether to follow the recommendations it issues.”]. Procedural rules which provide for prior consultation or discussion, and which entrust certain bodies with the task of formulating an opinion or a recommendation before a decision is taken, are established particularly in order that the decision-making authority may be informed as objectively and fully as possible about interests worthy of protection which its decision may harm; this should make it easier to gain the support of those concerned by the decision and should ultimately contribute to its smooth implementation. Advisory bodies can naturally play their role only if they have access to all the relevant information necessary for the formulation of their opinion.

  Keywords:

  advisory body; consultation; impartiality;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 2520

  
  100th Session, 2006
  Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Considerations 8-9

  Extract:

  "It is well settled that candidates are entitled to equal treatment in a competition for an advertised post (see Judgment 1990). It is an important aspect of the principle of equality that all candidates be considered objectively. Necessarily, a person's candidacy should not be evaluated by a person whose impartiality is open to question on reasonable grounds. The rule applies not only to those making or participating in the actual decision but also to those who have an advisory role, for they may exert influence on the ultimate decision (see Judgment 179). [...] To say that a person should not participate in the selection of candidates for an advertised position if his or her impartiality is reasonably open to question is not to say that a person should not have had a professional relationship with, or even supervisory responsibility for, one or more of the candidates. However, if the relationship goes beyond the proper bounds of a professional or supervisory relationship, there may well be reasonable grounds to question the impartiality of the person concerned."

  Reference(s)

  ILOAT Judgment(s): 179, 1990
  

  Keywords:

  advisory body; bias; candidate; case law; competition; composition of the internal appeals body; equal treatment; impartiality; post; selection board; supervisor;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 1477

  
  80th Session, 1996
  International Training Centre of the International Labour Organisation
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Consideration 7

  Extract:

  "It is plain from the whole process of selection that though the Committee did endorse the panel's report it had neither looked at the individual applications nor seen any of the candidates but had left all that to the panel. Though it is not unthinkable for a selection committee to set up a panel of people whom it believes to be better fitted to assess the technical qualifications of candidates, especially external ones, it may not delegate altogether its authority under the Staff Regulations. It must exercise its own authority and not delegate unless the rules say it may."

  Keywords:

  advisory body; competition; condition; delegated authority; flaw; impartiality; procedural flaw; selection board; staff regulations and rules;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 1177

  
  73rd Session, 1992
  Universal Postal Union
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Consideration 4

  Extract:

  "When the Director-General's decision is not based on the results of an examination marked by an independent body, he has a wide degree of discretion in making an appointment and granting promotion. Though he is not bound by any recommendation from an advisory body, his authority does not make referral to such a body pointless. A selection body relieves him of the burden of carrying out an assessment himself. It ensures that all applications for appointment or promotion, whatever their source, shall be examined impartially and on the merits. And its report enables the Tribunal to appraise the background to the impugned decision and determine whether it shows any flaw."

  Keywords:

  advisory body; appointment; competition; discretion; further submissions; impartiality; interlocutory order; judicial review; promotion; promotion board; recommendation; report;
  

  
  
  

• Judgment 1077

  
  70th Session, 1991
  Pan American Health Organization
  Extracts: EN, FR
  Full Judgment Text: EN, FR

  Consideration 10

  Extract:

  There was a further potential flaw in the process. Since the candidates had to write their names on the test papers, the person in charge of quantifying the results would, had she marked the papers, have been aware of their identity, and there would have been a risk that the examiner might, even involuntarily, be influenced by knowing the candidates. The process of evaluation must not only be fair, as provision 344 requires, but also be seen to be fair.

  Keywords:

  candidate; competition; flaw; impartiality; selection procedure;