Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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Officials ° Actions ° Action against an act adversely affecting the official adopted during a recruitment procedure ° Plea based on the unlawfulness of an act adversely affecting the official adopted earlier in the same procedure ° Admissibility ° Conditions ° Whether unlawfulness of the competition notice may be relied upon to challenge refusal to admit the official to the competition

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

Summary

In an action challenging an act adversely affecting an official which was adopted during a recruitment procedure the applicant may rely on the unlawfulness of acts adopted at an earlier stage in the procedure provided that they are closely linked to the contested act. Since the recruitment procedure is a complex administrative operation composed of a series of decisions which are closely linked, to deny applicants that possibility would be to oblige them to bring as many actions as there are acts in the procedure capable of adversely affecting them. The availability of a plea of unlawfulness of earlier acts in the procedure cannot, when it is the competition notice which the applicant challenges, depend on distinctions as to the degree of clarity and precision of the notice. The considerations pertaining to the complexity of the recruitment procedure which justify the availability of such a plea remain entirely apt even if the condition in the competition notice which is at issue is clear and precise.