Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Officials - Promotion - Consideration of comparative merits - Automatic promotion of officials on the previous year's list of candidates considered most deserving of promotion - Illegal - Judgment of the Court of First Instance finding the procedure illegal - Inconsistency in the grounds - Error in law - None

(Staff Regulations, Art. 45(1), first subpara.)

Summary

$$For each promotions procedure, the first subparagraph of Article 45(1) of the Staff Regulations places the appointing authority under an obligation to undertake a consideration of the comparative merits of the officials eligible for promotion and of the reports on them.

Although the requirement of a consideration of the candidates' comparative merits may take into consideration the fact that a candidate has already been on the list of most deserving officials in a previous procedure, it none the less requires that the merits of each candidate be assessed in comparison with those of other candidates for promotion, including officials who have not been previously on the list of most deserving candidates.

There is no inconsistency in finding that, on the one hand, in the context of the promotions procedure in issue, the officials on the previous year's list of candidates considered most deserving of promotion are included on the current year's list only on condition that they are not no longer deserving of promotion and, on the other hand, that, in proceeding in this way, the appointing authority did not consider the comparative merits of candidates for promotion, in accordance with the requirements of the first subparagraph of Article 45(1) of the Staff Regulations. An assessment of the question whether a candidate is no longer deserving of promotion, which is of a purely individual nature, does not mean that the merits of all the officials eligible for promotion were actually compared.

For the same reason, the Court of First Instance did not err in law in holding that consideration of the question whether an official eligible for promotion is no longer deserving of promotion was not equivalent to a consideration of the comparative merits, as required by the first subparagraph of Article 45(1) of the Staff Regulations.

( see paras 18-19, 23-24 )