Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

1. Officials ° Remuneration ° Family allowances ° Dependent child allowance ° Treatment of a person as a dependent child ° Article 2(4) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations ° Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 67; Annex VII, Art. 2)

2. Officials ° Staff Regulations ° General implementing rules ° Rules for implementing Article 2(4) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations ° Illegality

(Staff Regulations, Arts 67 and 110; Annex VII, Art. 2(4))

Summary

1. The Court of First Instance rightly considered that Article 2(4) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, which permits the appointing authority in exceptional cases to treat a person whom the official has a legal responsibility to maintain and whose maintenance involves heavy expenditure as if he were a dependent child, must be interpreted as meaning that a child who does not satisfy the conditions for granting dependent child allowance defined in Article 2(3) and (5), merely because he is a legitimate, natural or adopted child of an official, or of his spouse, is not excluded from the scope of the provision.

2. In fixing minimum and maximum age-limits for a person to be treated as a dependent child, Articles 3 and 7 of the Council decision adopting general provisions for applying Article 2(4) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations restrict the scope of that provision and deprive the appointing authority of the opportunity of exercising its discretion in each particular case. Those articles thus run contrary to the objective of Article 2(4) which seeks in a general way to deal with situations in which the official cannot claim the benefit of Article 2(3) and (5) although he is in fact responsible for the maintenance of a person who causes him to incur similar expenditure.

The Court of First Instance therefore rightly considered Articles 3 and 7 of the Council decision to be vitiated by illegality.