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UNAT considered Mr Elguindi, Ms Onogi and Ms Sheryda’s separate appeals. With respect to Mr Elguindi’s claim, UNAT did not find that the manner in which UNJSPF apportioned his monthly pension sum to be unreasonable, capricious or an abuse of discretion. With respect to Ms Onogi’s claim of procedural defects, UNAT was not persuaded that there were procedural flaws on the part of UNJSPF such as to render the exercise of its discretion unreasonable or unlawful. UNAT also did not find merit in Mr Elguindi’s claim of “double-dipping” in his opposition to Ms Onogi’s claim for relief from UNJSPF...

UNAT held that there was no merit to the Respondent’s argument that the existence of official CPI data for Argentina of itself rendered the Standing Committee impotent as far as a consideration of the Appellant’s request. UNAT held that the matters could be raised by UNJSPF of its own volition or where a concerned beneficiary applied for the application of paragraph 26. UNAT held that the Respondent’s arguments that the Appellant’s complaint had been dealt with by historical benefits that accrued to him were unpersuasive. UNAT held that the impugned decision was, in effect, a failure by the...

UNAT determined that by refusing to review the staff member’s request, the UNJSPB had failed to properly exercise its jurisdiction pursuant to paragraph 26 of the PAS, whose very purpose “is to address the issue of whether the application of official Consumer Price Index (CPI) data results in ‘aberrant results’ or the situation where no up-to-date CPI data is available”. UNAT upheld the appeal, vacated the decision of the Standing Committee of the UNJSPB to reject the staff member’s request that the UNJSPF discontinue the local track in application of paragraph 26 of the PAS, and remanded the...

UNAT considered an application for revision of judgment No. 2011-UNAT-158. UNAT held that there was no new fact such as to meet the criteria set out in Article 11 of the UNAT Statute. UNAT held that Mr Laeijendecker sought to re-argue or reopen issues. UNAT held that insofar as Mr Laeijendecker sought interpretation of the impugned judgment, paragraphs 29, 30 and 31 were clear on their face and had to be read in conjunction with paragraphs 27 and 28, and paragraphs 32-35. On the allegation of bias, UNAT held that Mr Laeijendecker’s submissions amounted to no more than completely...

As a preliminary matter, UNAT denied the Appellant’s request for an oral hearing. UNAT noted that UNJSPF correctly applied Article 45 of the UNJPSF Regulations and relied on an internationally binding judgment about spousal and child support, issued by an Austrian court, which was not contradicted by the divorce decree issued by a Portuguese court. UNAT found no error of law or fact such as to vitiate the contested decision and upheld UNJSPF’s “reasoned and well-founded decision.” UNAT dismissed the appeal and upheld the UNJPSB decision.

UNAT held that the Standing Committee did not err in holding the application was not receivable ratione temporis. UNAT noted that, in refusing to receive the application, the Standing Committee also implicitly refused to find “good cause” to waive the sixty days’ time limit for review set forth in Section K of the UNJSPF Administrative Rules. UNAT also found no error in this implicit determination and held that a waiver of five years for review by the Standing Committee would be unreasonable, especially in light of the time limits in the Transfer Agreement between UNJSPF and CTBTO. UNAT...

UNAT considered Mrs Sidell’s two Applications, one for correction and the other for interpretation of the judgment. With respect to the Application for correction, UNAT held that there were no clerical or arithmetical mistakes in the relevant paragraphs and that Mrs Sidell merely disagreed with the referenced portions of the judgment. With respect to the Application for interpretation, UNAT held that the referenced paragraphs were clear in meaning on the face of the record and did not need any interpretation. UNAT denied both Applications.

The first issue UNAT considered was whether UNDT erred in applying ST/AI/2010/3 to the selection of staff for the G-7 post and UNAT found that UNDT did not err in this regard. UNAT noted that the language of paragraph 14 of the Memorandum of Understanding With Respect to United Nations Personnel Procedures Application to the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund requires that “[t]he General Service staff of the [Pension] Fund secretariat shall be appointed and promoted through the normal [United Nations appointment and promotion] procedures, according to the policies applicable at the duty stations in...

UNAT held that the decision of the UNJSPB not to submit the staff member’s appeal to the Standing Committee contravened his rights under the UNJSPF Regulations by depriving him of access to the appeals process and was a serious violation of his due process rights. Noting that UNAT’s jurisdiction was limited to hearing appeals of decisions of the Standing Committee and that the staff member’s case had not been reviewed by the Standing Committee, UNAT held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal and remanded it to the Standing Committee.

UNAT held that the staff member’s retirement benefit from the UNJSPF including the monthly periodic pension benefit was not subject to taxation and/or payment of statutory deductions and that therefore, any challenge with respect to the application and meaning of the words “gross” and “net” was merely semantic. UNAT held that the ASHI premium was a voluntary payment that was deducted by the UNJSPF at the behest of a beneficiary and therefore could not be treated as or deemed to be a statutory deduction. UNAT dismissed the appeal.