Staff rule 111.2 (a) requires that a staff member who wishes to challenge an administrative decision to request the Secretary-General, within two months of notification of the said decision, for the decision to be reconsidered. This period starts from the notification of the first refusal decision. The sending by the administration of decisions confirming a first refusal does not reopen the deadlines. However, it is up to the judge to ascertain before rejecting a time-barred request that the staff member has not been misled by the administration on the terms of his appeal.
The Applicant filed a motion for interim measures requesting that the Tribunal order the Ethics Office to deliver recommendations on his case with respect to whistle-blowing retaliation; and to find a prima-facie violation of the Applicant鈥檚 due-process rights concerning the non-renewal of his fixed-term contract with UNDP. The Tribunal rejected the motion to order the Ethics Office to deliver its recommendations and decided that the alleged violation of the Applicant鈥檚 due process rights concerning the non-renewal of his fixed-term contract would be addressed during the review of the...
The meaning of any legislative provision is ascertained by the meaning of its words in the light of the intention of the rules as a whole. Where the wording of an instruction suggests that no exception is permitted, a number of common law jurisdictions have found the mandatory or directory dichotomy inappropriate.To establish the meaning and intention of a UN provision the relevant context is the hierarchy of the UN鈥檚 internal legislation. This is headed by the Charter of the UN followed by resolutions of the General Assembly, staff regulation and rules, Secretary- General bulletins and then...
UNDT noted that the Applicant had until 2 February 2009 to file an appeal before the Joint Appeals Board. However, the Applicant鈥檚 appeal was dated 27 February 2009 and was not received by the Joint Appeals Board until 3 March 2009. The Applicant鈥檚 Counsel did not present any exceptional circumstance that prevented him from filing an appeal within the time limits prescribed in the Staff Rules then in effect. UNDT held that the request was therefore irreceivable. UNDT rejected the application.
A summary judgment was rendered because, as per art. 9 of the RoP, there was no dispute as to the material facts and judgment was restricted to matters of law. As one of the Applicants did not file an application in person (art. 8.1 (b), 3.1 and 2.1 of UNDT Statute) neither designated a counsel to act on his behalf (art. 12 of UNDT RoP), his application was deemed as not receivable. Furthermore, considering that an apology is beyond the remedies which may be ordered by the Tribunal in accordance with art. 10.5 of UNDT Statute, the application was declared as out of the Tribunal鈥檚 mandate.
The applicant鈥檚 supervisor should have recused himself from the Management Review Group (MRG) that reviewed the performance reports to avoid conflict of interest. However, this procedural irregularity was mitigated by the subsequent report of the Rebuttal Panel. Outcome: Respondent to pay the applicant the equivalent of one-month net base salary for suffering and stress.
Where evidence is capable of establishing a likelihood of a connection between potentially extraneous considerations and a failure to obtain a renewal of a contract, summary dismissal is unlikely to be warranted. Where one party raises sufficient material suggesting a particular fact or facts and the other party has the sole means of refuting that inference, then an evidentiary burden to call that evidence will ordinarily arise so that a failure to do so will make it relatively easy for the other party to treat the fact as proven. Outcome: The motion for summary judgment was dismissed, without...
UNDT noted that the Applicant, having received the contested decision on 4 February 2009, did not file her application with this Tribunal until 14 July 2009, which was beyond the 90 calendar-day deadline set forth in Article 8 of the UNDT Statute. UNDT noted that before it can reject an application, it must determine whether failure to meet the deadline could have resulted from erroneous information provided by the Administration. UNDT held that the Applicant was not given any information that could have misled her, because, as she herself wrote, it was not until after 1 July 2009 that she...
This judgment is confined to whether the applicant should have access to the report. The applicant was ordered be given access to the panel鈥檚 report, subject to an undertaking of confidentiality.
UNDT found that the applicant could not be recruited from his general service post to the professional level without undergoing the required examination. The UNDT awarded three-months salary as compensation for the distress caused by the Organization.