As a preliminary matter, the Appeals Tribunal dismissed Mr. Wan's argument that he had been placed at a considerable disadvantage, directly impacting the outcome of the case, by the fact that he had been unrepresented before the ICAO Appeals Board.
Turning to the merits of the case, the Appeals Tribunal affirmed the findings of the Appeals Board that on clear and convincing evidence two counts of misconduct had been proved to have been committed by Mr. Wan which justified the imposition of the sanction of dismissal. On the material presented by the Secretary-General to the President, the...
The Appeals Tribunal dismissed the appeal, finding that it was evident from a perusal of the appeal brief that Mr. Hammad did not argue that the UNRWA DT committed any error of fact or law. He merely presented the same arguments that he had already made in his application for revision before the UNRWA DT and failed to demonstrate how the UNRWA DT erred.
The Applicant was under the obligation to act with a minimum level of probity, impartiality, fairness, honesty and truthfulness as required by the established facts (staff regulation 1.2(b)). Also, if it is found that an actual or possible conflict of interest arose out of these facts, the Applicant was obliged to disclose this conflict to his head of office in order to allow UNVMC to mitigate its impact and resolve it in accordance with its own best interests (staff regulation 1.2(m)). Finally, if the Applicant’s involvement in a matter could result in an actual or potential conflict of...
The Tribunal concluded that the promulgation of ST/AI/2018/Rev.1/Amend.1, which restrictively redefined enrolment-related fees, did not conform to General Assembly resolution 70/244. As such, its promulgation was an abuse of the Administration’s discretion and its application in reviewing the Applicant’s education grant for her son was unlawful.
Accordingly, the Tribunal held that the Applicant was correct in that the fees that she claimed were admissible as tuition, in addition to being enrolment-related. Thus, the decision to deny reimbursement for those fees was unlawful.
The Tribunal...
The UNAT observed that two e-mail exchanges between Ms. Nimusiima and a former UNHCR staff member (AM) were the only documentary evidence offered to establish Ms. Nimusiima’s culpability in issuing a fraudulent resettlement letter in exchange for a bribe.
The UNDT had concluded that these e-mail exchanges showed that Ms. Nimusiima acted in concert with AM, but that they were nonetheless “equivocal” (unclear/vague), “purely circumstantial” and did not prove with high probability that AM had sent the fraudulent resettlement letter to the Complainant (the alleged refugee).
With regard to...
The Appeals Tribunal found that the UNDT correctly dismissed Mr. Salon’s application as not receivable on grounds that he had failed to establish that an appealable administrative decision had been taken by the Organization and that in any event, he had failed to request management evaluation.
The Appeals Tribunal found that the paucity of positive comments, compared with the overwhelmingly negative comments rendered Ms. Haydar’s performance evaluation an “administrative decision” with a direct adverse impact on her employment. The Appeals Tribunal thus found that the UNDT did not err in finding her application receivable.
Turning to the merits of the application, the Appeals Tribunal found that by characterizing Ms. Haydar’s performance as “successfully meets performance expectations”, the Administration precluded her from contesting the appraisal through the rebuttal process...
The UNAT noted that the essence of the administrative decision had been that the staff member was not entitled to cashed-up unused annual leave from a second appointment taken up within 12 months of relinquishing a first appointment after which such leave had been commutated.
The UNAT observed that the staff member’s request for management evaluation referred to the Administration’s alleged “continued failure” to compensate him the commutation of annual leave. The UNAT found that the reference reinforced a conclusion that it had been the consistent decision conveyed to him over several months...
The UNAT held that with no evidence of a manifest abuse of proceedings by the Commissioner-General before the UNRWA DT, nor any finding by the UNRWA DT of such an abuse of proceedings, the legal cost orders made by the Dispute Tribunal did not accord with the terms of Article 10 of the UNRWA DT Statute and were therefore unjustified and could not be sustained. Moreover, if the UNAT considered that the legal costs were awarded by the UNRWA DT under Article 10(5)(b) (which was not apparent from the Judgment), there existed no basis to justify such an order given the evidence before the Dispute...
The UNAT held that the UNDT properly applied the legal framework governing the termination of appointments for unsatisfactory performance. The UNAT found that the staff member was aware of the required performance standard for his post and that he had been given a fair opportunity to meet this standard. The UNAT observed that he had received “partially meets performance expectations” for two performance cycles, and “does not meet expectations” for the most recent performance cycle. He had also been placed on a performance improvement plan, but failed to meet all of the objectives of the PIP...