JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Third Chamber)

11 December 2003

Case T-323/02

Monique Breton

v

Court of Justice of the European Communities

‛Officials — Promotion — Award of promotion points — Admissibility’

Full text in French   II-1587

Application for:

annulment of the decision of the Court of Justice concerning the award to the applicant of promotion points for the years 1998, 1999 and 2000 pursuant to the Court's decision of 18 October 2000 on promotions and the decision of the Registrar of the Court of 3 December 2001 establishing a transitional system for promotions.

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

1. Officials — Actions — Act adversely affecting an official — Concept — Award of promotion points — Inclusion

   (Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

2. Officials — Promotion — Adoption of a new promotion system — Transitional system — Account taken of officials' merits — Discretion of the administration — Judicial review — Limits

   (Staff Regulations, Art. 45)

3. Community law — Principles — Equal treatment — Discrimination — Meaning

1.  In the rules on promotion adopted by the Court of Justice, which are based on consideration of aggregated merits represented by promotion points accumulated year after year, the implications of the award of promotion points are not limited to one particular promotion round.

   Accordingly, although it forms part of the promotion procedure and does not entirely predetermine the position that the appointing authority will adopt on the possible promotion of the official concerned in a particular promotion round, that award must, like the staff report, be regarded as an independent act producing binding legal consequences likely to affect the official's interests by significantly changing his legal situation, against which action may be brought under the Staff Regulations.

   (see paras 54-55)

2.  A Community institution which is required, by virtue of an internal decision introducing a transitional promotion system, to take account of the merits demonstrated by an official during a period not covered by the staff reports, when he was first a member of the temporary staff and then a probationary official, has a wide discretion for that purpose. The review by the Community judicature is therefore confined to determining whether, having regard to the various considerations which may have influenced the administration in making its assessment, it has remained within reasonable bounds and has not used its power in a manifestly incorrect way.

   (see para. 98)

   See: T-262/94 Baiwir v Commission [1996] ECRSC I-A-257 and II-739, para. 66; T-221 /96 Manzo-Tafaro v Commission [1998] ECRSC I-A-115 and II-307, para. 16; T-163/01 Perez Escanilla v Commission [2002] ECRSC I-A-131 and II-717, para. 28

3.  The principle of nondiscrimination or equality of treatment, which constitutes a general principle of Community law, prohibits comparable situations from being treated differently or different situations from being treated in the same way, unless such difference in treatment is objectively justified.

   (see para. 99)

   See: 91/85 Clemen and Others v Commission [1986] ECR 2853, para. 10; C-174/89 Hoche [1990] ECR I-2681, para. 25, and the case-law cited