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UNAT held that UNDT had not addressed the Appellants’ request for an extension of time but had rather converted sua sponte the request into incomplete applications and summarily adjudged their applications as not receivable. UNAT held that UNDT could not have converted sua sponte the Appellants’ request for more time into applications. UNAT held that UNDT had not afforded the Appellants the opportunity to file an application and had committed several procedural errors, exceeded its jurisdiction and competence, and violated the Appellants’ due process rights. UNAT vacated the UNDT judgment and...

UNAT found that UNDT had not addressed the Appellants’ request for an extension of time but had rather converted sua sponte the request into incomplete applications and summarily adjudged their applications as not receivable. UNAT held that UNDT could not have converted sua sponte the Appellants’ request for more time into applications. UNAT held that UNDT had not afforded the Appellants the opportunity to file an application and had committed several procedural errors, exceeded its jurisdiction and competence, and violated the Appellants’ due process rights. UNAT vacated the UNDT judgment and...

UNAT found that UNDT did not address the staff members’ requests for an extension of time and that instead had converted sua sponte the requests for an extension of time into “incomplete” applications, adjudging the applications not receivable. UNAT held that UNDT had not afforded the staff members the opportunity to file an application. UNAT held that UNDT had exceeded its competence and jurisdiction and committed errors in procedure when it determined that the requests for an extension of time were the “equivalent” of applications; inferred that the statements in the requests for an...

UNAT held that the Secretary-General had the lawful authority to impose such a restriction, which objectively furthered the operational purposes of efficiency and short-term convenience and was proportional in its effects. UNAT held that the decision of the Administration to limit the appointment to UNMISS staff members was reasonable and that there was insufficient evidence to support a finding of discrimination or improper motive. Accordingly, UNAT vacated the UNDT judgment.

UNAT held that UNDT was correct to reject the Applicant’s claim that she had been downgraded on the basis that: the reclassification/renumbering exercise had a legitimate organizational objective; it was not a classification within the meaning of ST/AI/1998/9; and when the Appellant had submitted her post to proper classification, she was graded at the G-6 level, which was equivalent to her previous grade. UNAT found no error in UNDT’s decision that the Appellant failed to show that the alignment of her post to conform with the GCS had any detrimental impact on her salary or pensionable...

UNAT considered the Appellant’s appeal. As a preliminary matter, UNAT refused the Appellant’s Motion for Leave to File Additional Pleadings. UNAT referred to Article 3(1) of the RoP and Section II. A. 3 of Practice Decision No. 1 of the Appeals Tribunal, which provides that it may grant such a motion only if there are exceptional circumstances. UNAT held that the Appellant did not demonstrate any exceptional circumstances in the present case. UNAT also referred to the transitional measures provided by General Assembly Resolution 63/253 and Article 2(7) of the UNDT Statute, which notes that...

UNAT found that the appeal raised significant questions of law about the power of the Organisation to unilaterally alter or reduce the compensation of staff members of the Organisation. For that reason, the President of UNAT in terms of Article 10(2) of the UNAT Statute elected to refer the appeal for consideration by the full bench of UNAT. UNAT recalled that an administrative decision is a unilateral decision of an administrative nature taken by the administration involving the exercise of a power or the performance of a function in terms of a statutory instrument, which adversely affects...

UNAT held that the Appellant did not meet her burden of proving that UNDT clearly exceeded its jurisdiction or competence when it reassigned the cases. UNAT held that the UNDT decision on assignment and reassignment of judges are matters of case management and the fair and efficient functioning of the tribunal’s processes and within the UNDT’s jurisdiction. UNAT held that there had been no removal or replacement of Judge Downing, but rather that his term had expired. UNAT held that UNDT did not clearly exceed its jurisdiction and the appeals were not receivable. UNAT also noted that it does...

UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General. UNAT held that UNDT erred in law when it held that Staff Rules 4.4 and 4.5 established different recruitment regimes for professional and general service staff, clarifying that they establish different allowances and benefits regimes for local and international recruitment. UNAT held that UNDT erred in law when it found that it was illegal to restrict a temporary job opening at the professional level to local recruitment. UNAT held that UNDT contradicted UNAT’s jurisprudence on the wide inherent discretion conferred upon the Secretary-General...

UNAT held that the appeal was receivable on the basis that the Appellant was not challenging the new scheme for education grant introduced by the General Assembly, but rather the manner in which it was implemented in her specific case and the way in which the Secretary-General interpreted General Assembly Resolution 70/244. UNAT held that UNDT did not err in deciding that the Appellant did not have an acquired right to all of the previous education benefits she had enjoyed. On the question of the Appellant’s access to a discretionary consideration of her claims on exceptional grounds, UNAT...