����AV

The United Nations Secretary-General in not the Chief Administrative Officer of IOM, and IOM has not concluded a special agreement with the Secretary-General accepting the Dispute Tribunal’s jurisdiction. Instead, IOM falls under the jurisdiction of the Administrative Tribunal of the International Labour Organization.

As the Applicant’s request for management evaluation was not filed before submitting the application to the Dispute Tribunal in the present case, the Tribunal does not have the necessary subject-matter jurisdiction under staff rule 11.2. The challenge against the decision of...

Since the Applicant’s re-employment and new appointment occurred after 1 July 2007, his eligibility to participate in ASHI is contingent on his fulfilling the criteria laid out in sec. 2.1(a)(ii) of ST/AI/2007/3. Specifically, he is required to have been a participant in a contributory health insurance plan of the United Nations for a minimum of ten years.

UNAT held that UNRWA DT correctly found that the application was not receivable to the extent that it contested decisions taken. UNAT upheld the UNRWA DT’s findings that the provisions in the GMIP were mandatory for the UNRWA, that the GMIP does not include a provision with respect to retroactivity, and that UNRWA has no discretionary authority to enrol former staff members if this is not allowed in the contract. UNAT held that the GMIP could not apply outside of its scope of application. UNAT held that there was no evidence that UNRWA DT erred on the law or the facts, and that the Appellant’s...

UNAT held that it was unable to undertake a proper review of the case since the audio recording of the UNDT proceedings contained the final submissions of both counsels, but not the testimony of the two witnesses and the Appellant. UNAT held that UNDT erred in rejecting the Appellant’s request for documents relating to the calculation of reasonable and customary expenses as to whether the Administration properly calculated “reasonable and customary” expenses was a central issue in contention and was addressed extensively by the UNDT in its judgment. UNAT remanded the case to UNDT for a de novo...

UNAT considered the Secretary-General’s appeal and Ms Kortes’ cross-appeal. UNAT held that the issue was whether UNDT erred in concluding that the Administration was estopped from correcting its mistake by finding that Ms Kortes was not eligible for ASHI, having advised her in 2011 that she could not avail herself of the buy-in option. Noting that the Administration’s error was to inform Ms Kortes that she could buy-in to ASHI, based on a misunderstanding of the date she joined the Organisation, UNAT held that UNDT committed an error of law in coming to its conclusion that five years was...

UNAT dismissed the Appellant’s motion to file additional pleadings on the basis that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify the filing. On the merits, UNAT held that the UNDT calculation of the three-time periods of participation in the contributory health insurance plan was not correct. However, UNAT held that even the correct calculation did not result in the required 10 years of participation, but only 9 years, 10 months, and 14 days. Turning to consider the period of 11 May to 30 June 2009, UNAT held that a staff member who had expressly conceded in her application that a...

On appeal, UNAT held that UNDT did not commit an error of law or fact in accepting estimates from three different hospitals in Turkey, although one such estimate dated in December 2015 (close to the date of the interventions in Geneva, November 2015) and the other two estimates were submitted much later in October 2019. UNAT held the December 2015 estimate was a fair estimate of the medical costs. UNAT also rejected the staff member’s argument that a more favourable exchange rate (1 USD : 3 TRY), which was applicable in 2016, should have been applied to the October 2019 estimates. The Tribunal...

UNAT agreed with UNRWA DT that the Agency is estopped from revisiting the determination of whether the injury was service-related, given that the Agency had made several representations to the staff member over a period of time, and which the staff member had relied upon. However, UNAT disagreed that granting reimbursement for medical expenses in Syria would automatically mean that the Agency would also pay for such expenses in Germany. Pursuant to Area Staff Rule 106.4(3), the staff member needed prior authorization before he could be reimbursed for the costs of medical treatment in hospitals...

The purpose of compensation: Since the very purpose of compensation is to place the staff member in the same position he or she would have been in, had the Organization complied with its contractual obligations, the Tribunal first determines the likelihood that the Applicant would have been offered a hypothetical new contract and thereafter the characteristics of it. Likelihood of being offered a new contract: The Applicant did not just lose a chance of being considered for a new position; rather, it was only reasonable to assume that the Applicant would have been offered a new contract, had...

Likelihood of being offered a new contract: The Applicant did not just lose a chance of being considered for a new position; rather, it was only reasonable to assume that the Applicant would have been offered a new contract, had UNICEF properly complied with its own rules. Length of a new contract: Had UNICEF fulfilled its obligations, the Applicant would have been offered a new contract as a two-year fixed-term appointment. Possible renewal: It could not be assumed that, had the Applicant been offered a new contract, then this contract would automatically have been renewed indefinitely—the...