¹ú²úAV

UNAT denied the Appellant’s application for an oral hearing. UNAT held that the UNDT had not committed an error of procedure by denying the Appellant an oral hearing. UNAT held that UNDT enjoys a wide margin of discretion in all matters relating to case management and there was no error in the proceedings before UNDT with specific consideration of the following: UNDT’s denial of the proceedings to be conducted in French; UNDT’s dismissal of objections to English translations in the application and other documents, UNDT’s issuance of its judgment before having the Secretary-General’s reply translated; and UNDT’s failure to have specific annexes to the Appellant’s application translated into English. UNAT held that UNDT did not commit an error of law or exceed its jurisdiction. UNAT further held that a fact-finding investigation may only be undertaken if there are sufficient grounds or, respectively, reasons to believe that a staff member has engaged in unsatisfactory conduct for which a disciplinary measure may be imposed. UNAT held that UNDT correctly held that the Appellant’s request for investigations against the Officer-in-Charge of the Management Evaluation Unit was lawfully denied by the Under-Secretary-General for Management. UNAT held that there was no reason to believe that the Officer-in-Charge of the Management Evaluation Unit had engaged in unsatisfactory conduct. Noting that management evaluation is a mere condition of receivability of an application before the UNDT and did not form part of the contested administrative decision, UNAT held that the Appellant’s submissions with regard to the management evaluation decision were not relevant on appeal. UNAT dismissed the appeal and affirmed the UNDT judgment.