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Frequently Asked Questions
- Serving or former staff members of the organisations which have recognized the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, as well as external collaborators and contractors if the terms of their contract provide for this (Article II(4) of the Statute).
- The Tribunal's working languages are French and English, which are also the languages of its Statute and Rules. The language of the pleadings is chosen by the complainant (Article 6(4), of the Rules). However, annexes submitted in the other working language of the Tribunal are accepted; for annexes submitted in a language other than the working languages of the Tribunal, a translation is required (Article 6(1)(c), of the Rules). Translations must be true to the original (with no comments being added), but they need not be prepared by an official translator.
- The general rule is that in order to be receivable a complaint must be filed within 90 days following the notification of the challenged decision (Article VII of the Statute). Note that the time limit is 90 days and not three months as indicated in the internal rules of certain organisations. If in doubt, always bear in mind that it is the time limit mentionned in the Statute of the Tribunal that will apply.
- (See Advice to litigants A2 and A6)
- No. The time limit established by Article VII of the Statute is mandatory and cannot be extended.
- (See, however, Advice to litigants A3)
- Only an individual decision producing legal effects, or the application in an individual case of a general administrative decision (for example the first payslip applying an administrative directive regarding salary scales), can be challenged before the Tribunal.
- This is not compulsory; it is possible in particular to be assisted by a serving or former staff member of the organisation in question (Article 5(1) of the Rules).
- Interveners must be in the same situation in fact and in law as the complainant (Article 13 of the Rules). All applications to intervene submitted by staff members are forwarded to the defendant organisation for comments. To be receivable, an application to intervene must be submitted no later than the last working day before the opening of the session in which the case is to be heard. Two original signed copies of each application to intervene must be submitted, and if there are more than five applications, an alphabetical list of the applicants must be provided in two copies.
- The written proceedings end with the filing of the defendant's surrejoinder. The Tribunal considers that an exchange of pleadings in four stages (complaint brief, reply, rejoinder and surrejoinder) is generally sufficient for examination of the case.
- (See Advice to litigants B13 and B14)
- As a general rule, cases are put on the list of a session in chronological order, according to the date of filing. A complainant would be wrong to think that shortening the written proceedings, by choosing not to submit a rejoinder for example, will result in his case being heard at an earlier date than cases for which full written proceedings have taken place.
- The Tribunal's judgments are final and are not appealable (Article VI(1) of the Statute). Nevertheless, applications for review have been filed, and in Judgment 442 the Tribunal defined the grounds for review that are inadmissible and those that could be admissible. The Tribunal has since upheld that precedent.
- (See Advice to litigants G)
- The Tribunal seeks to ensure that its rulings are sufficiently clear and precise to be easily executed. Where a party considers that a judgment is not clear and asks for an interpretation, the Tribunal rarely provides further explanations.
- The organisations are bound to execute the Tribunal's judgments and, in most cases, they honour their obligations. If there are serious reasons to believe that the defendant organisation will not honour its obligations or will delay execution, the complainant may, after having allowed the organisation a sufficient and reasonable period of time to execute the judgment, ask the Tribunal to rule that the organisation has failed to do so and to order that appropriate measures be taken.
- An application for review, interpretation or execution must satisfy the formal requirements provided for in the Rules; the applicant or the organisation itself must fill in a complaint form, write a brief, provide a list of annexes as well as the annexes themselves, and submit six copies of all these documents. These applications are not subject to time limits nor is there any obligation to exhaust internal means of redress before filing the application.
- (See Advice to litigants G)
- The costs of the proceedings are borne by the organisation against which the complaint has been filed, regardless of the outcome of the case. The complainant will bear his own costs, including lawyer's fees if any, but these may be fully or partly reimbursed by the organisation if the Tribunal considers this to be appropriate.
- (See Advice to litigants E)
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