Judge Greceanu
HLIS acted fairly and transparently in advising the Applicant that she had to update her mailing address to receive her insurance card and did not act in a negligent manner. The applicable law does not allow a retroactive termination of the enrollment in the United Nations Headquarters-administered insurance programme outside of the annual campaign. There was no legal basis for the retroactive cancellation of the Applicant’s enrollment in the United Nations Headquartersadministered insurance programme and reimbursement of the premiums and thus there was no legal basis for any other...
Receivability: The part of the application regarding the decision identified under “g) the possibility of providing a negative reference about [the Applicant] to OLA where [she has] been interviewed and considered for a shortterm position of six months” is to be rejected as not receivable since a request for management evaluation was not filed timely. Merits: The contested decision: The Applicant’s fixed-term contract was terminated following the abolishment of her post due to a lack of funds and therefore subject to availability of suitable posts, the Applicant had the right (“shall”) to be...
Staff rule 4.7(a) and (b) has a limited and express area of application as established in staff rule 4.7(c) and that, per a contrario, a person who is the father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister of a staff member and who applied to a post, was considered and was selected through a competitive selection process as being the best candidate, can be assigned to any post, including in the same department/unit which is not superior or subordinate in the line of authority to the staff member to whom s/he is related. Staff rule 4.7(c), by establishing that the posts which are superior or...
The failure to re-interview the subject of an investigation to confront him/her with additional gathered evidence constitutes a breach of his/her due process rights: the contested disciplinary decision is unlawful since it was taken based on the evidence and recommendations of the SIU/UNAMID investigation reports issued in January 2013 and December 2013, even though the SIU/UNAMID continued the investigation and gathered additional evidence from two witnesses in January 2015 and April 2015. The new evidence was never brought to the attention of the Applicant or of the decision-maker before...
The Tribunal concludes that the Applicant’s application for the three P-3 posts was not fully and fairly considered, since the Hiring Manager did not personally evaluate her candidacy based on the information included in the PHP and e-PAS reports, while formally endorsing the decision of the CSS/OSU not to shortlist the Applicant. The Applicant’s e-PAS reports contained essential information regarding the Applicant’s fulfilment of the highly desirable requirements for the job opening. The Tribunal concludes that it has no competence to order the Secretary-General to assess the way the...
The Tribunal is of the view that in light of the oral evidence presented to the factfinding panel by the FRO and SRO, instead of them following the recommendations of the second rebuttal panel to initiate and provide real support to the Applicant at every stage of the process, they continued their negative behavior towards the Applicant and they did not temporarily rotate/assign him to another position in a different Unit for the following six months (up to one year starting from 19 March 2014), and to allow for the continuation of his third probationary year. The Tribunal concludes that the...
The Tribunal concluded that, based on the inconsistencies identified in the complainant’s statement during the investigation, together with the absence of his testimony during the appeal, as the only direct witness apart from the Applicant, the complainant’s version of facts did not corroborate the other witnesses’ statements, except for one witness, who had only an indirect knowledge of the alleged incident. The Tribunal concluded that there was no reasonable link between the alleged physical assault and the existing injury. The Tribunal further concluded that the procedure followed was...
The Tribunal found that the Administration did not respect its obligation pursuant to staff rule 9.6(e)(i) and 9.6(f) to retain the Applicant and the Applicant’s correlative right to be retained in any available suitable post at her level (G7 step 10) or at a lower level in UNHCR NY, or at her Professional level or lower in the parent Organization. The Tribunal granted the Applicant’s claim in part, rescinding the contested decision and ordering the Respondent to retain the Applicant with retroactive effect from 31 December 2016 in any current suitable available post(s), or in alternative, the...
The Tribunal found that several of the Applicant’s claims were not receivable, granted his claim for assignment grant in part, and rejected his claims for security evacuation allowance; post adjustment; and compensation for financial hardship.
No legal implementation of an expired decision: The Tribunal underlines that, after its expiration a decision cannot any longer produce legal effects and therefore cannot be implemented and / or extended and that any such action constitutes itself a breach of procedural fairness.
Granting an application for revision: As consistently held by the Appeals Tribunal, “the review procedure [of revision] is of a corrective nature and thus is not an opportunity for a party to reargue his or her case” (see Sanwidi 2013-UNAT-321, para. 8. Moreover, an application for revision of a judgment is only receivable if it fulfills the strict and exceptional criteria established under art. 12.1 of the Dispute Tribunal’s Statute and art. 29 of its Rules of Procedure, namely (see James 2016-UNAT-680, para. 13): “… Accordingly, an application for revision of judgment is only receivable if...
Receivability ratione materiae: The application is receivable ratione materiae if the applicant is contesting “an administrative decision that is alleged to be in non-compliance with the terms of appointment or the contract of employment” (art. 2.1 of the Statute) and if the applicant previously submitted the contested administrative decision for management evaluation, where required (art. 8.1(c) of the Statute).
Receivability before the UNCB. As follows from art. 12 read together with art. 14(b)(ii) of ST/AI/149/Rev.4, for a compensation claim for damage to be receivable before the UNCB, the relevant staff member is required (“shall”) to take the following mandatory and cumulative actions, setting forth in detail all relevant circumstances to UNCB: (a) to notify the United Nations authorities and the local police about the incident as soon as possible; (b) to submit all pertinent evidence; (c) in case the staff member holds valid personal insurance at the date of the incident, to take all the...
The Tribunal (a) granted the application in part, (b) rescinded the contested decision in part and replaced the excessive and unlawful disciplinary measure of dismissal with the lesser sanction of separation from service with termination indemnity; (c) ordered the judgment to be included in the Applicant’s official status file and all references relating to the disciplinary sanction of dismissal to be removed from this file and to be replaced with the new sanction, namely separation from service with termination indemnity; and (d) in the event that the Respondent would decide not to rescind...
The Applicant requests revision of UNDT/2017/012 on the grounds that the Tribunal did not consider his closing statement. The Tribunal concludes that there are no legal reasons for the Judgment to be revised. The Tribunal also notes that the reason invoked in the application for revision may be submitted as a ground of appeal, if any, before the United Nations Appeals Tribunal.
The Tribunal granted the application is part and awarded the Applicant USD4,000 in compensation for procedural violations.
The Tribunal found that UNMISS was incorrect when it restricted applicants to the TJO to staff already employed by UNMISS since the Applicant was an internal candidate. The Tribunal concluded that the decision to consider the Applicant ineligible for the TJO was unlawful and breached the Applicant’s right to be fully and fairly considered for the post. The Tribunal found the application receivable and that the contested decision not to find the Applicant eligible for the TJO and the related decision to continue the selection process were unlawful and breached the Applicant’s right to a full...
The Tribunal granted the application in part and awarded the Applicant USD18,000 in moral damages: USD3,000 for each of the six RC position for which she applied in her August and November 2013 job applications (the appeal against other non-selection decisions was not found receivable as it had been made out of time). When assessing the Applicant’s relevant applications, it was unlawful for the EG to not nominate the Applicant as this decision was based on her 2012 performance appraisal report, which, at the given time, was still under rebuttal, and not on the last three performance appraisal...
The Tribunal granted the application in part as the reasons provided for the Applicant’s termination, notably end of appointment and abolition of post, were incorrect and therefore unlawful (the decision was rather based on the Applicant’s health). As relief, the Tribunal granted the Applicant’s request for pecuniary compensation consisting in net-base salary from her separation date and until her retirement and ordered that the Applicant should also receive compensation in the amount equal to the contributions (staff member’s and the Organization’s) that would have been paid to the United...
The Tribunal rejected the application on the merits.