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The Secretary-General appealed on the premise that UNDT improperly substituted its decision for that of the Administration. UNAT disagreed and found that the reason UNDT rescinded the decision was because it suffered from incoherence, i.e. the reasons provided for singling out the staff member with a shorter extension of his FTA changed over time and were not supported by the facts. UNAT also noted the ex post facto reasons for selecting the cross-appellant rather than one of the other staff members provide an inadequate justification, especially in light of the incoherence and the fact that...

UNAT disagreed with UNDT and found the procedure laid down in the Staff Regulations and Rules was not properly followed, as such the Secretary-General’s exclusion of the staff member from the selection process was not legal, rational, procedurally correct, or proportionate. UNAT firstly held that UNDT erred when it ruled that the invitation e-mail respected the advance notice requirement. UNAT reasoned that the day of the event (the receipt of the email) cannot be counted in computing the number of days required to give advance notice for a test. As such, by requiring at least five working...

Admissibility: The parameters of what is admissible before this court is provided for in Article 18 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure. In relevant part, the Article states that the Tribunal shall determine the admissibility of any evidence; and that it may exclude evidence which it considers irrelevant, frivolous or lacking in probative value. Workplan/EPAS: It is the responsibility of the first reporting officer to set out the work plan with the Applicant; to conduct the mid-point review and the final appraisal; and to provide supervision on the overall work of the Applicant during the course...

UNDT preliminarily rejected the Applicant’s requests for recusal, holding that there were no longer any grounds for ruling on those requests since the UNDT President previously rejected those requests. Concerning the first application, UNDT held that the Applicant did not establish the illegality of the election of JC and that his application for the election to be declared null and void must be rejected. With regard to the Applicant’s request that all decisions taken by the Internal Justice Council be rescinded, UNDT held that it is clear from General Assembly Resolution 62/228 of 22 December...

Outcome: Application dismissed as the preponderance of evidence demonstrated that the applicant’s candidature had been given full and fair consideration.

One of the elements that an application for suspension of action must show is that the contested decision “appears prima facie to be unlawful”, i.e. that there is a reasonably arguable case that the contested decision is unlawful. A merely reasonable (hence legitimate in ordinary parlance) expectation of a particular outcome is not the same as a legitimate expectation that gives rise to any legal rights, and will be insufficient to establish reasonably arguable unlawfulness. Outcome: The Judge held that there is an insufficient evidentiary basis for concluding even on a prima facie level that...

The applicant submits that the decision not to promote her is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations and the provisions of the Staff Rules stipulating that the main factors to be considered with regard to promotions are efficiency, competence and integrity. However, the applicant does not specify in what respects the contested decision violates the said provisions and thus does not enable the judge to rule on these assertions. The principal reason for the refusal to recommend promotion was that the applicant had not been recommended in 2007. While the applicant is contesting that...

The judge makes his decision on the basis of all the documents in the file to the extent that all the parties are aware of them and have been able to discuss them. He must not exclude a document produced by a party unless it is submitted after the expiry of a time limit which he himself has fixed or which is imposed on him by the texts and only if this document is not likely to modify the outcome of the dispute, a hypothesis which requires the judge to grant the parties additional time to ensure compliance with the adversarial proceedings. The regulations in force for establishing the list of...

Putting into force a new methodical approach to establish a list of recommended staff for a P5 promotion had not been submitted to the mixed staff-administration consultative body of HCR as long as this approach did not modify the existing regulations when it comes to the criteria of promotion. It is for the Administration to establish a list of promotions based on regulations put in place in order to reconcile the two imperatives for advancement based on merit and that of gender balance and, if necessary, by introducing quotas. Failing to have such regulations in place, the Administration...

The meaning of any legislative provision is ascertained by the meaning of its words in the light of the intention of the rules as a whole. Where the wording of an instruction suggests that no exception is permitted, a number of common law jurisdictions have found the mandatory or directory dichotomy inappropriate.To establish the meaning and intention of a UN provision the relevant context is the hierarchy of the UN’s internal legislation. This is headed by the Charter of the UN followed by resolutions of the General Assembly, staff regulation and rules, Secretary- General bulletins and then...