Keywords
Summary

Keywords

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1. Officials - Actions - Time-limits - Point at which time starts running - Notification - Concept - Burden of proof of notification

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91(3) )

2. Procedure - Compulsory intervention - Not permissible

(Rules of Procedure, Arts 93 and 97)

3. Officials - Actions - Prior complaint through official channels - Same subject-matter and grounds

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

4. Officials - Recruitment - Discretion of the administration - Review by the Court - Limits

5. Officials - Individual decision - Belated notification - Effects

(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.)

6. Officials - Decision adversely affecting an official - Appointment decision - Obligation to state reasons - Purpose - Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.)

7. Officials - Decision adversely affecting an official - Obligation to state reasons - Non-compliance - Remedied in the course of the procedure before the Court

(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.)

8. Officials - Actions - Subject-matter - Order directed to the administration - Not permissible

(EEC Treaty, Art. 176; Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

Summary

1. It is the responsibility of the party alleging that an action has been brought after the expiry of the period prescribed in Article 91 of the Staff Regulations to prove on what date the decision was notified.

2. The only remedies available are those provided for in the legislation and the Court cannot add to them, particularly where the judicial protection of individuals is already assured under appropriate conditions.

Since there is no legislative provision for compulsory intervention the Court cannot order such intervention. The rights of persons who have not been made parties to the proceedings before the Court are safeguarded by the Rules of Procedure by virtue of the right to intervene voluntarily and of the remedy of third-party proceedings.

3. An official may seek from the Court only relief having the same subject-matter as the claims set out in the prior complaint through official channels and may submit only heads of claim which are based on the same matters as those relied on in the complaint.

4. The scope of the Court' s review of decisions adopted in a recruitment procedure is limited, in view of the discretion vested in the appointing authority, to consideration of the propriety of the procedures used by the administration, checking the material exactitude of the facts relied on by the administration in adopting its decision and, finally, the absence of an manifest error of appraisal, error of law or misuse of powers that might vitiate the administrative decision.

5. The first sentence of the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations provides that any decision relating to a specific individual which is taken under the Staff Regulations must at once be communicated in writing to the official concerned. The fact that that notification is found to have been belated cannot, in itself, constitute an infringement of that provision such as to entail annulment of the contested decision.

6. The obligation to state the reasons for a decision adversely affecting an official laid down in the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations constitutes an essential principle of Community law which may be derogated from only for compelling reasons.

Where the appointing authority appoints a person appearing on a list of suitable candidates arranged in order of merit and follows that order in so doing it is not required to give to the candidates not selected who appear lower on the list than the candidate appointed a statement of the reasons for its decision not to appoint them, the selection board being deemed to have informed the successful candidates of their relative positions on the list and to have provided an adequate statement of reasons at the same time.

On the other hand, if the list of suitable candidates is drawn up without reference to order of merit, for example in alphabetical order, and the appointment of one candidate from the list involves the immediate cancellation of the list, that decision directly and immediately affects the legal situation of the other successful candidates and the reasons on which it was based must therefore be notified to them. It would be unreasonable, unfair and contrary to the letter and spirit of the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations if the best candidates, included on a list of suitable candidates drawn up otherwise than in order of merit, could be excluded from the recruitment procedure without being given any statement of grounds whatsoever that might enable them to find out the reasons for which they were not ultimately selected by the appointing authority and to determine whether or not such reasons were sound.

7. Explanations given in the course of the proceedings may, in exceptional cases, render devoid of purpose a plea that a statement of reasons was not provided, so that there is no longer any justification for annulment of the contested decision.

8. It is not for the Court to address orders to the Community institutions or to substitute itself for them.