JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

16 September 1998

Case T-215/97

Sari Kristiina Jouhki

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Notice of competition — Non-admission to the competition’

Full text in Finnish   II-1513

Application for:

annulment of the decision of the selection board in competition COM/B/973 not to admit the applicant to the competition.

Decision:

Application dismissed.

Abstract of the Judgment

The applicant was a candidate in competition COM/B/973 to constitute a reserve list for recruitment of assistants (grade B 5/B 4 — nurses) of Austrian, Finnish or Swedish nationality.

The notice of competition provided that ‘as at the date prescribed for the submission of applications, candidates must: (a) have completed a course of advanced secondary education and obtained a final certificate or diploma, and have completed a course of nursing training and obtained a certificate or diploma recognised by a competent authority’.

The applicant submitted her application within the prescribed time-limit. She annexed to her application form only a copy of the final diploma obtained by her on completion of her course of nursing training.

Upon being refused admission to the competition, she lodged a complaint and, upon that complaint being rejected, she brought proceedings.

Substance

The first plea, alleging infringement of the terms of the competition notice

The competition notice unambiguously requires candidates, on pain of being refused admission to the competition, to forward to the competition selection board, before the deadline, documents showing the successful completion by them of, in particular, a course of advanced secondary education. It is common ground that the applicant did not forward to the competition selection board, before the deadline, a copy of her final certificate or diploma awarded on the completion of such a course (paragraphs 53 and 54).

The decision of the selection board not to admit the applicant to the competition was therefore adopted in full compliance with the terms of the competition notice.

The second plea, alleging breach of the principle of equal treatment

There is a breach of the principle of equal treatment where two categories of person whose factual and legal circumstances disclose no essential difference are treated differently or where situations which are different are treated in an identical manner (paragraph 62).

See: T-18/89 and T-24/89 Tagaras v Court of Justice [1991] ECR II-53, para. 68; T-207/95 Ibarra Gil v Commission [1997] ECRSC II-31, para. 68

In the present case, the applicant has not in any way shown that the Commission applied different treatment to candidates who forwarded their application files in the same way, namely annexing only their nurse's diploma and not their final certificate or diploma awarded on the completion of a course of advanced secondary education (paragraph 63).

Operative part:

The application is dismissed.