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Ms. Larriera filed an appeal.  

UNAT first examined whether Ms. Larriera was entitled to file a claim under Appendix D.  UNAT found that – unlike the Pension case - for the purpose of the Staff Regulations and Rules, the law of Brazil, Mr. M’s national state, was to be the law determining his marital or domestic partnership status as at the date of his death for Appendix D purposes. That status, as determined subsequently by a Brazilian court of competent jurisdiction, was that Mr. M and Ms. Larriera were, as at the date of his death (and despite his still extant French marriage to Ms. M) in...

The UNAT reviewed the submission of the Secretary-General that Ms. Lekoetje had already repaid the amounts due to the Organization when she separated from service.  The UNAT acknowledged that Ms. Lekoetje agreed with the Secretary-General’s position, and confirmed that USD 20,987.91 had already been deducted from her final entitlements. 

Accordingly, the UNAT accepted this position, and interpreted Judgment No. 2022-UNAT-1227 as requiring a payment by the Organization to Ms. Lekoetje of a sum equal to one year’s net base salary, but without any further deductions.

The decisive fact relied on by the Secretary-General to justify a revision of the UNAT judgment  is said to be that Mr. Russo-Got inserted false information in his candidature regarding his alleged experience with NATO. The Secretary-General submits that he first became aware of this fact formally when it was made known to UNOPS after the issuance of the UNAT judgment.

UNAT held that the facts advanced by the Secretary-General, namely the allegedly false information Mr. Russo-Got had inserted in his candidature, could not be decisive of the Secretary-General’s case and enable him to now...

UNAT considered an appeal by the Secretary-General against Judgment No. UNDT/2021/032. It also considered a cross-appeal by Ms. Hilaire-Madsen claiming that the UNDT should have rescinded the Administration’s non-renewal decision and awarded her alternative compensation as well as compensation for moral damages.

As regards the lawfulness of the non-renewal decision, UNAT held that under the specific circumstances, at the material time of the contested non-renewal decision at the end of December 2018, from the point of view of a fair-minded objective observer, with the information available at...

The UNAT noted that in this case, the JAB made not a decision, but rather a recommendation to the Registrar of the ITLOS, who in turn, purported to make the decision about Mr. Savadogo’s appeal. The UNAT recognized that the ITLOS changed and consolidated the relevant Staff Regulations and Rules so that the JAB now makes decisions (from which appeals may be brought to the UNAT) rather than, as occurred in this case, recommendations to the Registrar of the ITLOS, which the Registrar may or may not accept. However, this amendment came too late for the parties in this case.  Thus, the original...

Receivability

The Respondent challenged the receivability of the application. He argued that the Dispute Tribunal may only issue an Order for execution under art. 12.4 of its Statute where a judgment required a time limit for execution and such execution had not been carried out.

The Tribunal considered that while Judgment Applicant UNDT/2022/055 did not provide for its execution within a certain period of time, it was reasonable to infer that in the absence of an appeal, said judgment should have been executed within a reasonable time, after the expiry of the 60-day time limit to file an...

Receivability

The Respondent challenged the receivability of the application.

The Tribunal noted that the application filed on 2 March 2022 via email was essentially the same as that filed on 16 April 2022 via the eFiling portal. Consequently, in line with Practice Direction No. 4, para. 11, the Tribunal found that the present application was receivable.

 Merits

In the present case, this Tribunal examined the following issues:

a. Whether the facts on which the disciplinary measure was based have been established according to the applicable standard.

The Tribunal examined the evidence on...

To determine the lawfulness of the contested decision, the Tribunal examined the following issues:

 a. Whether the Applicant’s performance was evaluated in a fair and objective manner.

The Tribunal noted that the contested decision was based on the Applicant’s records for the performance cycles of 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021. The Applicant received a rating of “partially meets performance expectations” for the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 cycles and a rating of “does not meet performance expectations” for the 2020-2021 cycle.

The Tribunal reviewed the Applicant’s performance evaluations...

Rescission and in lieu compensation under art. 10.5(a) of the Dispute Tribunal’s Statute

Considering that the evidence provided by the Respondent showed that the duration of most of the former renewals of the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment including the last regular renewal was for a duration of one year and that there is no expectation of renewal for a fixed-term appointment, the Tribunal determined that the amount of in lieu compensation must be equal to one year’s net base salary.

Compensation for harm under art. 10.5(b) of the Dispute Tribunal’s Statute

The Tribunal reviewed the...

The Applicant claims that several events of prohibited conduct occurred between 2018 and 2022 affecting him. However, he did not follow the procedural path under Bulletins ST/SGB/2008/5 (Prohibition of discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority) and ST/SGB/2019/8 (Addressing discrimination, harassment, including sexual harassment, and abuse of authority) for the handling of formal reports of prohibited conduct and the Dispute Tribunal does not have jurisdiction to conduct an investigation into such allegations.

There is no evidence that the Applicant ever...