JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Single Judge)

20 February 2002

Case T-117/01

Marcos Roman Parra

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Officials — Promotion — Prior complaint through official channels — Implied rejection — Grounds’

Full text in French   II-121

Application for:

annulment of the Commission's decision not to promote the applicant to Grade A 6 in the course of the 2000 promotion procedure.

Held:

The decision of the Commission not to promote Mr Roman Parra to Grade A 6 in the course of the 2000 promotion procedure, as evidenced by the publication in Administrative Notices No 65-2000 of 14 August 2000 of the list of officials promoted to that grade, is annulled. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

Officials — Promotion — Complaint by a candidate who has not been promoted — Implied decision rejecting it — Complete absence of statement of grounds — Regularisation during the procedure before the Court — Not permissible

(Staff Regulations, Arts 25, second para., and 90(3))

Although the appointing authority is not obliged to give reasons for a promotion decision, either to the person promoted or to the candidates who have not been promoted, it is obliged to state the grounds for its decision rejecting a complaint lodged pursuant to Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations by a candidate who has not been promoted. Where an implied rejection of the complaint amounts to total absence of a statement of grounds, since no information constituting a statement of grounds of some kind is available to the applicant before his action is brought, that absence cannot be remedied by explanations provided during the proceedings on the action.

(see paras 25, 30-32)

See: 111/86 Delauche v Commission [1987] ECR 5345, para. 13; C-343/87 Culin v Commission [1990] ECR I-225, paras 13 and 15; T-52/90 Volger v Parliament [1992] ECR II-121, para. 40; T-16/94 Benecos v Commission [1995] ECRSC I-A-103 and II-335, para. 36; T-283/97 Thinus v Commission [1999] ECRSCI-A-69 and II-353, paras 78 to 83; T-112/96 and T-115/96 Séché v Commission [1999] ECRSC I-A-115 and II-623, para. 76