Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Officials - Social security - Insurance against accidents and occupational disease - Invalidity - Different schemes - Single concept of occupational disease

(Staff Regulations, Arts 73 and 78; Rules on Insurance against the Risk of Accident and of Occupational Disease, Art. 3(2) )

2. Officials - Social security - Invalidity pension - Declaration of invalidity and its occupational origin - Competence of the Medical Committee - Judicial review - Limits

(Staff Regulations, Art. 78; Annex II, Arts 7 to 9; Annex VIII, Art. 13)

Summary

1. The term "occupational disease" cannot have a different meaning depending on whether it is a question of applying Article 73 or Article 78 of the Staff Regulations, even though each of these provisions concerns a set of arrangements which has its own characteristics.

Therefore, for the purposes of applying the second paragraph of Article 78 of the Staff Regulations, the official concerned must establish, in accordance with the definition of occupational disease given in Article 3(2) of the Rules on Insurance against the Risk of Accident and of Occupational Disease, adopted in implementation of Article 73, that a causal link exists between the disease in question or its aggravation and the performance of his duties with the Communities.

2. In the procedure conducted pursuant to Article 78 of the Staff Regulations, the declaring of an official' s invalidity is, in accordance with Article 13 of Annex VIII, a matter for the Invalidity Committee referred to in Articles 7 to 9 of Annex II.

Those provisions are intended to confer upon medical experts the task of making definitive appraisals of all medical questions, in particular the question of the occupational origin of a disease. Accordingly, neither the appointing authority nor the Community court may substitute its own opinion for the conclusions of the Invalidity Committee, which must be held to be definitive provided that they were properly made.