Judgment No. 1829

• Organization: European Patent Organisation (EPO)
• Date: 28.01.1999
• Original: English
• Judges: Gentot, Hugessen, Carroll
• Full judgment text - Full judgment text (french)

Decision

THE COMPLAINT IS DISMISSED.

Consideration 5

Extract:

"Any challenge to administrative decisions which were rendered with regard to the complainant after the filing of the first internal appeal but which were not the subject of further internal appeals is irreceivable: such decisions are not final, the complainant not having exhausted all existing means of resisting them as Article VII(1) of the Tribunal's Statute requires."

Reference(s)

ILOAT reference: ARTICLE VII, PARAGRAPH 1, OF THE STATUTE

Keywords

procedure before the tribunal; decision; absence of final decision; receivability of the complaint; internal appeal; internal remedies exhausted; iloat statute

Considerations 6-8

Extract:

"The complainant asks the Tribunal to review [an administrative decision] notwithstanding that the internal appeal procedure has not been completed. The Tribunal's case law has it that where the pursuit of the internal remedies is unreasonably delayed the requirement of Article VII(1) will have been met if, though doing everything that can be expected to get the matter concluded, the complainant can show that the internal appeal proceedings are unlikely to end within a reasonable time. [The Tribunal refers to the case law.] The complainant's internal appeal was received by the organisation on 16 April 1997. Her statement is lengthy and has 24 annexes. Less than a month later the Vice-President completed his initial assessment of her claims and referred the matter to the Appeals Committee. She filed this complaint just over three months later. The Tribunal holds that at the date of filing the present complaint the internal appeal process had not been unreasonably delayed and there was no indication that it was unlikely to come to an end within a reasonable time."

Reference(s)

ILOAT reference: ARTICLE VII, PARAGRAPH 1, OF THE STATUTE

Keywords

procedure before the tribunal; receivability of the complaint; internal appeals body; internal appeal; internal remedies exhausted; time limit; reasonable time; case law; iloat statute