Judge Buffa
Whether the application is receivable The Tribunal considers that the issues concerning the eligibility of SPA and the timeliness of its request are questions for the merits and have no bearing on receivability. Thus, the core receivability issue before the Tribunal is whether the contested decision falls within the scope of art. 2.1(a) of its Statute. The Tribunal is of the view that the contested decision fulfils the test of Andronov. It has been “shown to adversely affect the rights or expectations of the staff member” (see Michaud 2017-UNAT-761, para. 50), and thus has a direct legal...
The Applicant’s appointment rested with the Human Resources Section and not the DMS, the mere recommendation by the latter of extension of the contract did not constitute a firm commitment for the Organization under the applicable jurisprudence, nor did the extension of his ground pass, which is a mere organizational permission. Therefore, the Tribunal finds that the Applicant did not have a legitimate expectation of renewal of his fixed-term appointment. The Applicant’s post was among those whose unique function was to be abolished in the affected unit and therefore, deemed to be a “dry cut”...
The Applicant, as the aggrieved individual, was entitled to be informed of the outcome of the investigation and the action taken pursuant to sec. 5.18(c) of ST/SGB/2008/5. Section 5.18(c) of ST/SGB/2008/5 cannot be read as providing a mere right to be informed of the outcome of the investigation and of the action taken, but must be interpreted as providing a right to the aggrieved staff member that a disciplinary process be started unless exceptional circumstances arise. In the present case, the person to be disciplined was no longer a staff member, and the parties disagreed on whether the...
The Tribunal finds that the Applicant’s request for management evaluation on 24?July?2019 was time-barred, and thus the present application is not receivable ratione materiae.
The Applicant, a UNHCR staff member in between assignments (“SIBA”), was placed on SLWOP after having exhausted a nine-month period on Special Leave With Full Pay (“SLWFP”). The Tribunal reviewed the legality of the contested decision in light of the arguments put forward by the Applicant. Is the contested decision consistent with staff rule 5.3? The Tribunal found that the circumstances for the placement of SIBAs on SLWOP are per se exceptional and, consequently, the text of para. 139 of the RAAI is consistent with staff rule 5.3. Staff rule 5.3(f) sets the general principle that a staff...
Have the facts on which the disciplinary measure was based been established? The evidence on record, including the investigation report, the coherent hearsay evidence pointing to a pattern of behaviour, the consistency of the witness statements, the Applicant’s contradictory statements, and the inherent probabilities of the situation in the working and living conditions, cumulatively constitute a clear and convincing concatenation of evidence establishing, with a high degree of probability, the acts of sexual harassment. Do the established facts legally amount to misconduct? The Tribunal finds...
The Applicant failed to indicate a specific date and content of the challenged administrative decision, as she only recalled an email from the Deputy Director, ID/OIOS, which would purportedly confirm an evaluation of insufficiency of the Applicant’s investigatory experience to be recruited for the advertised post. The Tribunal, having considered the above-quoted content of the email, finds it insufficient to substantiate an administrative decision of definitive exclusion of the Applicant from the selection process. It remains, however, that the Applicant was not called for an interview and...
The Tribunal finds that the mere fact that the Applicant was not invited to a competencybased interview following the written assessment did not give rise to an administrative decision, and that such a step of the selection process may only be challenged in the context of an application against a specific decision with clear and direct legal consequences on the Applicant, such as the final selection decision. The Tribunal has accepted in the past that certain intermediate decisions in a selection process—such as when a candidate is found not suitable/ineligible for a given post— constitute...
The Tribunal finds that the mere fact that the Applicant was not invited to a competencybased interview following the written assessment did not give rise to an administrative decision, and that such a step of the selection process may only be challenged in the context of an application against a specific decision with clear and direct legal consequences on the Applicant, such as the final selection decision. The Tribunal has accepted in the past that certain intermediate decisions in a selection process—such as when a candidate is found not suitable/ineligible for a given post— constitute...
The Tribunal noted that there was no evidence that UNOPS Administration approved the Applicant’s sick leave. Therefore, given that the Applicant was separated from service effective 31 March 2018 and that no sick leave beyond that date had been approved by the UNOPS Administration, the Tribunal found that there was no sick leave to “terminate or retract” as claimed by the Applicant. Having said the above, the Tribunal found that the effective content of the challenged decision communicated to the Applicant on 5 April 2018 concerned the non-extension of her fixed-term appointment for the sole...
The legal issue for determination in the present case is whether UNOPS was under an obligation to extend a fixed-term appointment for the sole purpose of allowing a staff member to utilize his or her sick leave entitlement. The answer is negative, as the Tribunal found that there was no evidence in the case file to conclude that the legal framework of UNOPS included such obligation. Neither Staff rule 6.2(a) nor UNOPS Operational Directive OD.PCG.2017.01 on Human Resources, Ethics and Culture (in effect as of 15 August 2017) contain any obligation for the Administration to extend a staff...
The Tribunal noted that in accordance with ST/AI/2018/1, eligibility of international staff members for education grant in respect of their children is to be determined by inter alia the conditions that: a) the child is in full-time attendance at an educational institution at the primary level or above, and b) the child is five years of age or older at the beginning of the academic year, or the child reaches the age of five within three months of the beginning of the school year. The Tribunal found that UNICEF correctly considered that at both periods for which the Applicant applied for...
The application in respect of the alleged non-compliance with the second agreement is premature, and as such not receivable, because the Applicant has not followed the mandatory dispute resolution process contained in said settlement agreement concluded in July 2017. The Applicant’s multiples and generic complaints that the Organization has failed to follow its own rules and procedures, and her assertions regarding the conduct of her current and former reporting officers at UNGSC do not constitute administrative decisions under Article 2(1)(a) of the Tribunal’s Statute. The Tribunal DECIDES to...
The Tribunal noted that, on 12 January 2018, the Deputy Director of the UNOPS People and Change Group, in a telephone call, informed unequivocally the Applicant of the contested decision. The Applicant claimed that he was only officially made aware of his non-selection for the post when a formal announcement was made on 1 March 2018, which stated that another candidate had been chosen for the position. The Tribunal found that this claim was ill-founded, as a verbal unequivocal communication is sufficient for the purpose of staff rule 11.2(c) (see Auda 2017-UNAT-746). The Tribunal considered...
The Tribunal found that the application was not receivable. It resulted from the file that, on 24 November 2017, the Applicant received a letter indicating that she had not been matched against any post in the newly planned structure of the Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC). This letter clearly stated that “all posts in the current WSSCC structure [were] being abolished with effect [close of business] 31 March 2018”, that her appointment would not be renewed when it expires on 31 March 2018 and she would be separated from service. The Tribunal considered that the...
Rescission of the contested non-renewal decision In its Judgment Quatrini UNDT/2020/043, the Tribunal found that the Organization failed to justify the non-renewal of the contract of the Applicant and that the decision to separate him from service was therefore flawed. The Tribunal further held, comparing the P-5 level position formerly encumbered by the Applicant with the one advertised in the Global Mechanism, that the two positions are essentially the same, the Tribunal thus drew the inference that the position still exists. In these circumstances, the Tribunal found that the most...
The Tribunal considered that the reclassification of the post encumbered by the Applicant did not follow UNOPS Regulations and Rules concerning reclassification. It consequently found that the decision not to renew the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment beyond 31 December 2017, taken only as a result of the said reclassification of the post, was unlawful. On remedies, this Tribunal found that the determination of the compensation in lieu between the minimum and the maximum provided by the Statute must take into account—so graduating the amount accordingly—the specific circumstances of the case...
Staff members are entitled to due process in relation to their complaints, not to a particular finding against another staff member or to a particular decision by the Organization towards another staff member. The Applicant’s claims have all been comprehensively addressed by the Dispute Tribunal and the Appeals Tribunal, and the Applicant failed to establish a basis for which further remedies should be granted. The application is rejected in its entirety.
The Tribunal reviewed the documents submitted by the parties as well as the Respondent’s clarifications on the anonymity of the test and found that the Applicant’s allegation that the candidates’ responses were not anonymized was not supported by the evidence. The Applicant argued that the assessment panel was not properly constituted in accordance with sec. 1(c) of ST/AI/2010/3 as only two individuals, none of whom are female, graded the test results. The Tribunal acknowledged that the three-member composition of the assessment panel provided in ST/AI/2010/3 is not mandatory, as the...
The Tribunal found that the provided reason for not renewing the Applicant’s appointment was not properly based on facts and, consequently, that the contested decision was unlawful. To determine remedies, through a subsequent judgment, the Tribunal instructed the parties to file final submissions on the matter taking into account its findings in the instant Judgment.