JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

5 December 2002

Case T-249/00

Paul Edwin Hoyer

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Temporary staff — Termination of contract — Calculation of the period of notice — Days of leave not taken’

Full text in Dutch   II-1249

Application for:

annulment of the Commission's decisions of 14 June 2000 concerning the calculation of the date of expiry of the period of notice on termination of the applicant's contract as a member of the temporary staff (Decision R/78/2000) and establishing the number of days of leave not taken on his departure (Decision R/26/2000).

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

Officials — Sick leave — Proof of sickness — Production of a medical certificate enabling the administration to determine the need for a medical officer's examination — Production as soon as possible

(Staff Regulations, Arts 59 and 60)

Under Article 59 of the Staff Regulations, when an official reports that he is unable to perform his duties because of sickness or accident, he must notify his institution of his incapacity as soon as possible and produce a medical certificate justifying his absence if he is absent for more than three days. The administration may not deny the validity of such a medical certificate and claim that the absence of the official concerned is unauthorised unless it has first required him to undergo a medical examination. The duty to arrange such an examination before refusing to accept a medical certificate necessarily has as its corollary a duty on the part of the official to submit, as soon as possible, a certificate showing conclusively and in sufficient detail the nature of the incapacity on which he intends to rely, failing which the provisions of Articles 59 and 60 of the Staff Regulations would be rendered ineffective.

It follows that an official who provides evidence of incapacity to perform his duties because of sickness is not automatically entitled to sick leave irrespective of whether or not he produces a medical certificate, since, if that were the case, the institution would be unable, where appropriate, to carry out its task of verification, the need for which must be determined on the basis of the particulars shown in the medical certificate.

(see paras 42-43)

See: T-135/95 Z v Commission [1996] ECRSC I-A-519 and II-1413, paras 32 and 34; T-29/96 Schoch v Parliament [1997] ECRSC I-A-219 and II-635, para. 38