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The former Staff Regulations provided that: “For the purpose of these Regulations, the expressions ‘United Nations Secretariat’, ‘staff member’ or ‘staff’ shall refer to all staff members of the Secretariat […].” Former staff rule 104.10 (a) prohibited the recruitment of the father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister of a staff member, except where another person equally well qualified could not be recruited. It results from the foregoing that candidates who have a family relationship with a staff member working for an entity part of the UN Secretariat are precluded from recruitment to a...

The Applicant sought a further extension of time on 16 October 2009 to file her substantive application after the Tribunal had previously granted her 21 days to do so. This extension expired on 16 October 2009. The Tribunal noted that: the Applicant’s Counsel had applied to withdraw from representing the Applicant for want of instructions; the request for extension was filed on the date of expiry of the previous Order, and moved the Tribunal for a further extension of 1 year; the Applicant alluded to “direct negotiations” being underway; “with the Respondent in this matter”, but failed to...

Neither the Statute nor the Rules of Procedure of the Tribunal prescribe the form of the parties’ submissions filed in accordance with an order of the Tribunal. In the absence of such provisions, the matter falls under article 36 of the Rules of Procedures. The respondent has not specified anything in the form of the applicant’s submission that substantively breaches his obligations under the directions made in the Tribunal’s order—the use of the word “grounds” in a subheading instead of “issues” is not a significant difference and generally it is of no importance which template the applicant...

Outcome: In the exercise of its discretion under article 35 of the Rules of Procedure, the Tribunal found that it would be in the interests of justice to grant the respondent an extension of time for the filing of his reply until 21 December 2009, in order to allow the Tribunal to proceed with this matter without any further delays.

Outcome: The application for an extension of time to file an answer sets out in detail the reasons for the filing of an answer, and therefore the judge considered it as an application in terms of article 19 to file further papers. The judge held that in the current circumstances, receiving an additional submission that clarifies issues of fact and law may prevent unnecessary litigation, and assist the court in determining the questions before it in a fair and expeditious manner, and in doing justice to the parties. The judge granted the applicant leave to file an answer to the reply.

UNDP had an obligation to its staff to make it clear that the time frame for making applications for ad hoc posts might be less than the two weeks period mandated for QUARRY positions. The respondent, by virtue of the settlement agreement, was obliged to comply, amongst other things, with the Guidelines for the Recruitment and Selection of UNDP Staff, especially since they dealt with the subject of the agreement, namely support for the applicant’s attempts to obtain another post. Where there was a particular duty to inform imposed by the settlement agreement and the failure to inform...

The reservations which each of the Applicants formulated upon accepting the lump sum are not binding on the Administration since, at the time the agreement was signed, the Administration and the staff member were not in a contractual situation in which each could negotiate rights. Instead, they were in a situation governed by rules in which the Administration could only apply the rules and the staff member could only accept or reject the lump-sum payment proposed. The applicants contend that only by accepting the lump-sum payment with reservations could they challenge the basis on which the...

Decisions made prior to 2 April 2009 are not excluded from being challenged before the Dispute Tribunal. Outcome: The application was held to be receivable and the motion to dismiss was denied. The instant case was also held to be exceptional, deserving of the waiver and extension of the time limits. The staff member was granted two weeks to file and serve a revised application.

The suspension of action was granted and the adverse report ordered to be removed from the applicant’s official status file pending the outcome of the substantive proceeding.

The advertisement of a vacancy announcement is an action in rem, not in personam. In the present case, the Applicant failed to prove that the failure on the part of the Respondent to advertise the total number of posts to be filled in the vacancy announcement was a material error which violated his rights. With respect to the various allegations of discrimination, favouritism, corruption, lack of transparency, forgery, gambling, impunity, and abuse of authority in the selection system at stake, the Applicant failed to prove his pleas