UNDT/2023/062

UNDT/2023/062, Rodriguez Santorum

UNAT Held or UNDT Pronouncements

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 United Nations Health and Life Insurance Section is therefore not receivable ratione materia

Decision Contested or Judgment/Order Appealed

The Applicant, a staff member of the International Organization for Migration (“IOM”), filed an application contesting the rejections of his requests for after-service health insurance by (a) IOM and (b) the Health and Life Insurance Section in the United Nations Secretariat.

Legal Principle(s)

Pursuant to arts. 2.1 and 2.5 of the Statute of the Dispute Tribunal, the Tribunal is only competent to hear and pass judgment on applications against (a) the Secretary-General as the Chief Administrative Officer of the United Nations, or (b) another agency, organization or entity, which has concluded a special agreement with the Secretary-General of the United Nations to accept the terms of the jurisdiction of the Dispute Tribunal, consonant with the Statute.

The Tribunal notes that under staff rule 1.2, a mandatory first step in a case like the present one, which does not concern a decision (a) taken by a technical body, as determined by the Secretary-General, or (b) following the completion of a disciplinary process, is to file a request for management evaluation before submitting an application to the Dispute Tribunal. Otherwise, the application to the Dispute Tribunal is not receivable (in line herewith, see the consistent jurisprudence of the Appeals Tribunal in, for instance, Chriclow 2010-UNAT-035).

The Appeals Tribunal has stated that the purpose of the management evaluation is to “afford the Administration the opportunity to correct any errors in an administrative decision so that judicial review of the administrative decision is not necessary” (see Farzin 2019-UNAT-917, para. 40, and in line herewith, for instance: Kuadio 2015-UNAT-558; El-Shobaky 2015-UNAT-564; Kalashnik 2017-UNAT-803).

Outcome

Dismissed as not receivable

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The judgment summaries were generally prepared in English. They were translated into French and are being reviewed for accuracy of the translation.

Full Judgment

Applicants/Appellants

Rodriguez Santorum

Entity

Case Number(s)

Tribunal

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