Keywords
Summary

Keywords

++++

1. Officials ° Actions ° Prior complaint through official channels ° Subject-matter and legal basis to be the same ° Pleas in law and arguments not included in the complaint, but closely linked thereto ° Admissibility ° Consistency between complaint and application ° Consideration by the Court of its own motion ° Claim for payment of default interest first made before the Court of First Instance in the event of annulment of the contested decision ° Not a widening of the subject-matter of the dispute

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

2. Officials ° Remuneration ° Expatriation allowance ° Purpose ° Conditions for grant ° Official concerned must not have habitually resided or carried on his main occupation in the place of employment before entry into service ° Derogation ° Work done for another State or for an international organization ° Definition of "international organization" ° Definition restricted to public international organizations ° Not permissible

(Staff Regulations, Annex VII, Art. 4(1)(a))

3. Officials ° Staff Regulations ° Interpretation by the Board of Heads of Administration ° Interpretation narrowing the scope of a provision of the Staff Regulations by comparison with a previous interpretation ° Adoption not preceded by consultation provided for in Article 110 of the Staff Regulations ° Not published ° Not permissible

Summary

1. In staff cases, the forms of order sought before the Court may only have the same subject-matter as the claims in the prior complaint through official channels and may contain only heads of complaint having the same legal basis as relied on in the complaint and, although submissions and arguments made to the Court in support of those heads of complaint need not necessarily appear in the complaint, they must be closely linked to it.

The question of consistency between the complaint and the application is a matter of public policy to be considered by the Court of its own motion. It is therefore for the Court to dismiss as inadmissible a plea in law put forward in the application which is not referred to, directly or indirectly, in the complaint. On the other hand, where a claim for default interest is made in the event that the contested decision is annulled, there is no need for it to have been expressly mentioned in the prior complaint through official channels.

2. It follows, both from the wording of the last sentence of Article 4(1)(a) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations and the context in which that provision was laid down, and from the fundamental purpose of the expatriation allowance, which is to compensate for the extra expense and inconvenience of taking up permanent employment in a country with which the official has established no lasting tie before his entry into service, that the expression "circumstances arising from work done for ... an international organization" cannot be interpreted as referring solely to work done for an international organization created by States or by an international organization itself created by States. The expatriation of a person is independent of the special status which, as a member of the staff of a public international organization, he enjoys under international law. Thus, a person may be an expatriate while not being accorded that special status, just as a person may have that special status without actually being an expatriate.

3. An interpretation given by the Board of Heads of Administration, which has not been published and has not been submitted for consultation in accordance with the first paragraph of Article 110 of the Staff Regulations, cannot narrow the category of persons entitled under a provision of the Staff Regulations by comparison with an interpretation previously given by the same Board. An amendment of that kind cannot in any event take place solely on the ground of a concern for clarity and simplification.