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The UNAT held that the UNDT erred in holding that the Administration misinterpreted one of the requirements for the position advertised in JO 127555, namely “experience in leading large teams”, as requiring experience of direct supervision of 10 people or more.  The UNAT further found that the vacancy announcement allowed for a such contextual interpretation as the literal meaning of “lead” is very general and does not, by itself, allow for an exact comprehension of the intended meaning.  Therefore, the UNAT held that it was reasonable for the Administration to interpret the requirement of...

Accoding to the hiring manager, he concluded that the Applicant id not meet one of the minimum requirements for the position and thus, lawfully not considered further in the selection process. This requirement was "experience in leading large teams", which the hiring manager defined as "supervising at least 10 employees".

The Tribunal found that the process of advertising and setting out the criteria for selection was done lawfully. However, it also found that there was evidence of an unjust process that failed to provide a fair chance to job applicants like the Applicant because it failed to...

Mr. Moulana appealed the UNDT judgment.  

UNATnoted that the UNDT dismissed Mr. Moulana's application on the grounds of insufficient evidence, whereas he had not been afforded the opportunity to provide the evidence. UNAT held that the UNDT, by failing to address the Appellant’s requests for the production of documents, including ignoring his motion, violated the Appellant’s due process rights and deprived him of the opportunity to have his motion assessed and possibly granted, following which he could have submitted the pieces of evidence which the UNDT found he failed to provide.  Therefore...

The UNAT held that the ICAO Appeals Board implemented internal changes in its law to satisfy the requirements of Article 2(10) of the Appeals Tribunal Statute.  It found that the Appeals Board no longer provided only advice or mere recommendations to the ICAO Secretary General, but rather final decisions and, therefore, was a neutral first instance process.  It further found that while it might have been open to ICAO to consider using the UNDT for resolution of staff member disputes, it was free not to do so and cannot be criticised for doing as it did.  It concluded that the Appeals Board’s...

The UNAT held that the UNRWA DT correctly exercised its broad discretion with regard to its case management in concluding that the record before it was sufficient to render a decision without an oral hearing.  It concluded that the Appellant has not presented any grounds as to why an oral hearing would have been necessary and thus did not show that the UNRWA DT exercised its discretion in such manner as to affect the outcome of the case, as required by Article 2(1)(d) of the Appeals Tribunal Statute.

With regard to the Appellant’s argument that the non-selection decision was unlawful because...

As long as the Temporary Job Opening had no impact on the Applicant’s chances of selection, then an irregularity could not be relied upon as a basis for the selection process to be declared unlawful.

The Tribunal agreed with the Respondent that the Applicant cannot base his argument against the selection process in JO# 136259 by questioning the process in other matters which do not affect his case.

The Tribunal held that whilst the procedure spelt out in ST/AI/2010/3 was not followed, it was unable to see how this irregularity could have had any impact on the selection process.  

The UNAT dismissed Mr. Ponce-Gonzalez's appeal. The UNAT dismissed Mr. Ponce-Gonzalez’s argument of apprehension of partiality of the hiring manager claiming that there was an improper motive to unfairly eliminate him. The Appeals Tribunal found that the mere fact that the hiring manager was involved in two selection exercises in which Mr. Ponce-Gonzalez was not successful did not indicate any partiality, but rather a regular exercise of the Administration’s routine of selecting candidates for advertised positions.  The UNAT further found that the UNDT did not err in finding no irregularity in...

The UNAT dismissed the appeal. It held that the UNDT erred in its consideration of the Administration’s assessment of Mr. Ponce-Gonzalez’s experience against the evaluation criteria; the UNDT also erred when it rescinded the cancellation of the selection process, invalidating the reason then given that “none of the rostered candidates had met all of the required and desirable criteria of the job opening”, and concluding that “at least one of the rostered candidates (the Applicant) met and exceeded all criteria”. In so doing, the UNDT improperly appropriated the discretion of the Secretary...

The UNAT affirmed the decision of the ITLOS JAB, holding that the ITLOS was not obliged to conclude the recruitment exercise once it had begun, and that it had the authority to cancel the process. The UNAT was concerned by the change to the recruitment procedure during the course of the contested recruitment, but could not discern how this affected Mr. Savadogo’s candidacy. The UNAT agreed with the ITLOS JAB that Mr. Savadogo’s allegations of bias against the Registrar in the recruitment were countered by the fact that the President of ITLOS made the significant decisions in the recruitment...

The UNAT agreed with the UNDT that the Administration had shown that Mr. Mirella’s candidature was given full and fair consideration which satisfies the presumption of regularity, and that Mr. Mirella has not proven through clear and convincing evidence that he was denied a fair chance. The UNAT reviewed Mr. Mirella’s contention that the UNDT erred in finding that his exclusion from the shortlist was in compliance with Section 7.4 of ST/AI/2010/3 (Staff selection system). Specifically, the UNAT evaluated Mr. Mirella’s argument that the Hiring Manager erroneously found that he did not meet the...