Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Officials - Recruitment - Competitions - Competition based on qualifications and tests - Conditions of admission - Submission of documents for the purpose of admission to the tests -- Onus on candidates according to the competition notice - Scope

(Staff Regulations, Annex III, Art. 2)

2. Officials - Recruitment - Competitions - Competition based on qualifications and tests - Conditions of admission - Supporting documents - Request by selection board for additional information - Merely optional - No obligation to request submission of all documents required

(Staff Regulations, Annex III, Art. 2, second paragraph)

Summary

1. When clear provisions in a notice of competition based on qualifications and tests lay down the unequivocal requirement that candidates attach to their application form all the necessary supporting documents on pain of being refused admission to the competition, erroneous information given by an official who has no authority to change those provisions cannot, having regard to the meaning of the duty to have regard for the interests of officials and the principle of proper administration, either enable or a fortiori oblige a selection board or the appointing authority to act contrary to that notice of competition.

The fact that a candidate' s superior happens to be a member of the selection board, enabling it to ensure that the person concerned satisfies the conditions of admission despite the absence of the necessary supporting documents, cannot entitle the selection board to act contrary to the wording of the competition notice. Such an initiative on the part of the selection board would constitute discrimination vis-à-vis the other candidates who failed to provide the necessary supporting documents and would be rejected because no member of the selection board was acquainted with them.

2. The Court of First Instance properly held that it is clear from the second paragraph of Article 2 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations that it merely enables a selection board to request additional information from candidates if it is in doubt as to the exact significance of a document submitted. That provision can in no way be interpreted as imposing an obligation on the selection board to require candidates in a competition to submit all the documents which the notice of competition requires.

In that respect neither the duty to have regard to the interests of officials nor the principle of proper administration relied on in support of the appeal can transform into an obligation that which the Community legislature viewed as a mere possibility open to the selection board in a competition.