Judgment No. 3169
Decision
1. The decision of the Director of the CDE of 2 February 2010 and that of 2 December 2009 terminating the complainant's appointment are set aside.
2. The complainant shall be reinstated in the Centre to the full extent possible as from 4 December 2009, with all the legal consequences that that entails.
3. If the Centre considers that such reinstatement is impossible, it shall pay the complainant material damages calculated in the manner stated in consideration 20, and moral damages in the amount of 7,500 euros.
4. At all events, it shall also pay him costs in the amount of 5,000 euros.
5. The complainant's remaining claims are dismissed, as is the Centre's counterclaim.
Summary
The complainant challenges the decision to terminate his contract following the abolition of his post, which, in his view, was not taken by the competent body.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
complaint allowed; abolition of post; reorganisation; termination of employment
Consideration 21
Extract:
The complainant [...] contends that the circumstances in which his dismissal occurred caused him serious moral injury. His submissions in this respect are manifestly well founded. On the one hand, the lack of information before the termination of his appointment and of any effort on the part of the CDE to reassign him to another post were an affront to his dignity. On the other hand and above all, the complainant contends, without being contradicted in any way by the Centre, that on being notified of the termination of his contract by the Director in the presence of a bailiff, his ground pass to the Centre’s premises was immediately withdrawn and he was forthwith escorted from them by security guards. From its written submissions the CDE appears to believe that such measures, “albeit unusual”, were “not in any way intrinsically unlawful” and were justified, “in view of the number of staff members whose contract [had been] terminated”, by the need “to guard against possible acts of retaliation”. The Tribunal considers on the contrary that they were brutal and humiliating. They were all the more shocking in the instant case because they were directed against a staff member who had served the Centre with uncontested professional merit for no less than 22 years. If the complainant is not actually reinstated – and solely in this case, since the complainant makes this request only in his subsidiary claims – in consequence of the foregoing the Centre shall pay him moral damages, which the Tribunal considers it appropriate to set at 7,500 euros, as requested by the complainant.
Keywords
coercive measures
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