Judgment No. 3355
Decision
1. The decision of the Director General of Eurocontrol determining the pensionable years contested by the complainant and the decisions dismissing his request for review of that decision and his internal complaint are set aside.
2. The case is referred back to Eurocontrol in order that the pensionable years in question may be determined by the method prescribed in consideration 20, above.
3. The interveners shall enjoy the same rights as are established in respect of the complainant by this judgment.
4. Eurocontrol shall pay the complainant costs in the amount of 3,000 euros.
Summary
After the transfer of his pension rights acquired under a national scheme to the Organisation’s pension scheme, the complainant successfully challenges the refusal to recalculate the number of pensionable years credited to him.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
complaint allowed; decision quashed; case sent back to organisation; transfer of pension rights
Consideration 12
Extract:
"[The organisation] requests the joinder of the complaint with those filed by three other members of staff who also seek a review of the number of pensionable years credited when pension rights acquired under Belgian schemes were transferred. However, one of these complaints, filed by an official who was party to [...] Judgment 3034, raises quite different questions of law. The other two, which form the subject of Judgments 3356 and 3357, also delivered on this day, each contain specific arguments and do not therefore present identical issues of law and of fact for adjudication. It is therefore not appropriate to grant this request for joinder (see, in particular, Judgments 1541, under 3, 3064, under 6, and 3156, under 11)."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1541, 3064, 3156, 3356, 3357
Keywords
joinder
Considerations 13 and 14
Extract:
"[The organisation] based its dismissal of the complainant’s claims on the [...] view that, in accordance with the principle that the Tribunal’s judgments produce their effects only between the parties, the complainant, who was neither a complainant nor an intervener in any of the cases giving rise to those three judgments, could not rely on the rights which those judgments conferred on their beneficiaries.
This reasoning per se is certainly entirely consistent with the Tribunal’s long-established case law, as confirmed, for example, in similar cases in Judgments 2463, under 13, 3002, under 14 and 15, or 3181, under 9 and 10."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2463, 2985, 2986, 3002, 3034, 3181
Keywords
judgment of the tribunal; effect
Consideration 16
Extract:
"[I]t is well established in the Tribunal’s case law that when the regulations or rules of an international organisation are ambiguous they must in principle be construed in favour of the interests of its staff and not those of the organisation itself (see, for example, Judgments 1755, under 12, 2276, under 4, or 2396, under 3(a))."
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1755, 2276, 2396
Keywords
staff member's interest; interpretation
Consideration 18
Extract:
"[T]he Tribunal finds that, by denying the complainant’s request, [the organisation] unlawfully disregarded the [...]
provisions of the office notice [...] and thereby breached the principle of tu patere legem quam ipse fecisti, which requires every authority to abide by the rules which it has itself
established."
Keywords
patere legem
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