Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Officials ° Actions ° Staff report ° Prior complaint through official channels ° Optional ° Lodging of complaint ° Consequences ° Compliance with procedural constraints attaching to recourse to a prior official complaint

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

2. Officials ° Actions ° Prior complaint through official channels ° Legal basis and subject-matter to be the same ° Pleas and arguments not set out in the complaint but closely linked to it ° Admissibility ° Examination by the Court of its own motion that the complaint and the action correspond

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

3. Officials ° Reports procedure ° Staff report ° Assessments changed by comparison with previous report ° Duty to state reasons ° Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

Summary

1. The lodging of a formal complaint within the meaning of Article 90 of the Staff Regulations is not a necessary preliminary to bringing an application before the Court against a staff report provided for under Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, which expresses the freely expressed opinion of the reporting officers and not the assessment by the appointing authority. Accordingly an application to the Court may be made from the time when the report may be regarded as definitive.

However, although the person concerned has the choice of bringing proceedings before the Community judicature direct or lodging a complaint through official channels, he must in the second case observe all the procedural constraints attaching to the recourse to prior complaint which he has selected.

2. By requiring a prior complaint through official channels Article 90 of the Staff Regulations is designed to permit and encourage the amicable settlement of differences which have arisen between officials and the administration. In order to comply with that requirement it is essential that the administration should be in a position to know with sufficient certainty the complaints or wishes of the person concerned. On the other hand, it is not the purpose of that provision to bind strictly and absolutely the contentious stage of the proceedings, provided that the claims submitted at that stage change neither the legal basis nor the subject-matter of the complaint. Accordingly, after the expiry of the time-limit for bringing an application before the Court direct, an official who, although not required to do so since he is contesting a staff report, has preferred to make a preliminary complaint through administrative channels may seek from the Court only a form of order having the same subject-matter as the complaint and put forward only heads of claim based on the same matters as are relied on in the complaint. The submissions and arguments made to the Court in support of those heads of claim need not necessarily appear in the complaint, but must be closely linked to it.

The question whether the complaint corresponds to the action, which is a condition for the latter to be admissible, must be considered by the Court of First Instance of its own motion because it is a matter of public policy.

3. The duty to state reasons for any deterioration in relation to the previous staff report is intended to enable the official to know why the analytical assessments have changed, to verify the factors relied upon and hence to submit his observations on the statement of reasons in the context of his right to be heard. That requirement is satisfied when, in a memorandum to the official concerned, the reporting officer informs the latter that he did not display qualities of an exceptionally high level in the performance of some of his tasks. That statement of grounds, albeit summary, is sufficient to justify the slight deterioration from the highest assessment to the one immediately below it.