Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

1. Officials ° Assignment ° Re-assignment under a staff rotation system ° Distinguished from the filling of a vacant post ° Administration' s obligations to comply with the principles of equal treatment and the protection of legitimate expectations

(Staff Regulations, Arts 4, 29 and 45)

2. Officials ° Assignment ° Re-assignment under a staff rotation system ° Administration obliged to select one of the officials who has submitted an application ° No such obligation

Summary

1. The existence of a vacant post, within the meaning of Articles 4 and 29 of the Staff Regulations, presupposes that a post is not filled amongst the total number of permanent posts referred to in the list of posts appended, in accordance with Article 6 of the Staff Regulations, to the section of the budget relating to the institution in question and indicating, for each category and each service, the number of posts in each grade for each career bracket. A procedure for the rotation of staff within an institution, under which officials are re-assigned together with their posts, does not constitute a procedure for the filling of a vacant post. It follows that Articles 4, 29 and 45 of the Staff Regulations do not apply to a procedure of that kind.

However, the organization of the Community civil service is governed by certain general principles of law, including equality of treatment and protection of legitimate expectations, which may not be disregarded in the context of a procedure, such as that for the rotation of staff, which is not explicitly provided for by the Staff Regulations. The application of those principles implies, on the one hand, that the administration is obliged to undertake a proper comparative examination of the merits of the candidates and, on the other, that once it has decided to fill a specific post by means of that procedure, it must carry it through properly, observing the terms of the notice which it has published, before calling for applications from external candidates under a different procedure.

2. The decision to terminate a staff rotation procedure without filling a particular job by appointing an internal candidate falls within the discretion enjoyed by the appointing authority in this context. Although the administration is not obliged to carry through a recruitment procedure initiated pursuant to Article 29 of the Staff Regulations with a view to filling a vacant post, that principle must, a fortiori, apply by analogy in cases where the administration calls for internal applications in the context of a staff rotation procedure.