JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

30 January 2008

Case T-85/04

Guido Strack

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Staff reporting – Career development report – 2001/2002 appraisal procedure – Lawfulness of the staff reporting procedure)

Application: for annulment of the 2001/2002 appraisal procedure in so far as it concerns the applicant and of the decision which adopted his career development report for that procedure.

Held: The decision adopting the career development report of Mr Guido Strack for the 2001/2002 appraisal procedure is annulled. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

Officials – Reports procedure – Internal directive of an institution – Legal effects – Limits – Observance of the hierarchy of norms

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

There is nothing in principle to prevent the appointing authority from drawing up rules, by means of an internal decision of general effect, to govern the exercise of the discretion conferred on it by the Staff Regulations. However, the right to resort to such internal directives is subject to certain limits and, in particular, to the obligation to observe the principle of the hierarchy of norms.

An internal directive is a norm of a lower order than the Staff Regulations and the provisions adopted for their implementation. Consequently, the internal directives adopted by the Community institutions concerning the reports procedure cannot lawfully lay down rules which derogate from the provisions of the Staff Regulations or the General Provisions for Implementing Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, adopted by those same institutions.

Accordingly, since the General Implementing Provisions in force at the Commission provided, in certain situations involving an alteration of duties or a change of immediate superior, for an obligation to draw up partial appraisal reports and establish a weighting of the marks awarded by them, that institution could not provide, in an internal directive relating to the appraisal of staff during a transitional period corresponding to a change of system of reports, for the drawing-up of the report by the immediate superior in post at the end of the appraisal period, involving a simple consultation of the previous immediate superiors .

(see paras 38-42)

See: 190/82 Blomefield v Commission [1983] ECR 3981, para. 1; T‑17/95 Alexopoulou v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I‑A‑227 and II‑683, para. 23; T‑236/97 Ouzounoff Popoff v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I‑A‑311 and II‑905, para. 44; T‑198/04 Merladet v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑403 and II‑1833, paras 38, 40, 41 and 43