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The Tribunal found no merit in the application. In particular, the Tribunal found no grounds for the Applicants’ claim that the contested decisions were unlawful or that they were subject to gender discrimination. The Tribunal found that neither Applicant qualified for sec. 6.3(a)(i) parental leave by operation of sec. 1.2 of ST/AI/2023/2, which set a cutoff date of 1 January 2023, nor did they qualify for the 10 weeks special leave under the transitional measures since they did not give birth and were not on maternity leave on 1 January 2023. The Tribunal found that since the Applicants did...

The Tribunal observed that as reflected in the documents on record, the Applicant filed his application on 21 June 2024, but requested management evaluation on 16 August 2024. Furthermore, at the time the Tribunal issued the judgment, the management evaluation response period was still running.  It was thus clear that the Applicant filed his application prematurely.  Accordingly, the application was rejected as irreceivable. The Tribunal, however, informed the Applicant that he was free to file a new application on the merits, if submitted within the prescribed statutory timelines.

The UNAT noted that when the staff member had moved to North Carolina, he had not enquired whether or not he was obligated to pay the income tax of that state. Nevertheless, the UNAT concluded that the Secretary-General had erred in applying a one-year time limit to his request for reimbursement of his North Carolina state income tax for 2015-2018.

The UNAT considered the language of the relevant Staff Regulations and Staff Rules, interpretative doctrines, the legal regime of staff assessment, the hierarchy of the relevant norms and the apparent intent of the General Assembly. The UNAT...

At the outset, the Appeals Tribunal noted that Ms. Monasebian had provided little or no reason in support of her request for the anonymization of the Judgment other than a general statement that the information in her case was sensitive. The Appeals Tribunal took the view that anonymization was not warranted in this case and dismissed her request.

The Appeals Tribunal was satisfied that the UNDT did not err in finding that there was a preponderance of the evidence that Ms. Monasebian had engaged in a pattern of conduct through which she created an intimidating, hostile and/or offensive work...

The Appeals Tribunal found that the UNDT did not err in holding that the Hiring Manager had correctly assessed that the certificates the selected candidate had listed in her Personal History Profile (PHP) were equivalent to a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) Certification.  One of the educational requirements for the position was the LSS certification or an “equivalent certification”.  In the present case, the UNDT correctly concluded that the Hiring Manager had properly assessed that the certificates the selected candidate had listed in her PHP were equivalent to an LSS certification, as required for...

The Tribunal observed that according to the evidence on the record, the Applicant received the contested decision on 28 August 2023. To comply with the 60-day calendar days deadline to request management evaluation, the Applicant ought to have submitted it by 27 October 2023. However, she submitted it on 8 November 2023, nearly two weeks later. Accordingly, the Tribunal found that the request for management evaluation was time-barred and, as a result, that the application was not receivable ratione materiae. The Tribunal dismissed the application.

The Appeals Tribunal found that the Administration’s decision not to investigate further Mr. Lutfiev’s allegations against his former Chief of Staff was one which it was entitled to make given that the former Chief of Staff was no longer an UNRWA staff member.  

Furthermore, the Appeals Tribunal was satisfied that the UNRWA DT’s decision rescinding Mr. Lutfiev’s separation from service was decided erroneously.  The Dispute Tribunal applied the wrong methodology to its consideration of the grounds for Mr. Lutfiev’s separation from service and failed to undertake what is known as the four...

The Applicant in this case was given the opportunity to complete his application with the mandatory prerequisite for the filing of an application before the UNDT. The Applicant appears to have misunderstood what constitutes a “management evaluation request”. He assumed that querying the process with the hiring manager, and later, the Mission’s Chief of Staff, constitutes “management evaluation” for the purposes of proceedings before the UNDT. It does not.

The UNAT held that the staff member had had ample opportunity to comment on her lateral transfer. The UNAT noted that she had been aware of the recommendation to separate her from her First Reporting Officer, against whom she had made a complaint of prohibited conduct, and had had the opportunity to voice her concerns and also had been informed of the reassignment decision nearly a month before she took up the new post.

The UNAT accepted that the responsibilities and job functions of the new post had been commensurate with the staff member’s competence, skills, and experience. The UNAT found...

The UNAT held that the UNDT correctly identified UNDP as the respondent in the present case because it was UNDP that administered the staff member’s position and was therefore his employer.  The UNAT found that the staff member’s application was premature because he filed it before receiving the management evaluation response, or at least before the expiration of the delay for receiving that response.  The UNAT also concluded that the management evaluation response did not constitute the contested administrative decision.

The UNAT dismissed the appeal and affirmed Judgment No. UNDT/2023/036...

The UNAT found no error in the UNDT’s reliance on the communication between the staff member and her attorney when it established that she had submitted false information in her claims for reimbursement for medical expenses. The UNAT noted that her attorney had voluntarily submitted the privileged document as an attachment to her application. The UNAT observed that she had not imposed any limitations or reservations on the UNDT’s use of the document and had referred to it on multiple occasions in the course of the proceedings. The UNAT agreed that she had waived her right to confidentiality...

The Tribunal found that the decision to place the Applicant on ALWP was lawful, reasonable and proportionate, and that the SRSG reasonably exercised his authority to protect the work of the fact-finding panel (pursuant to sec. 11.3(b) of ST/AI/2017/1) and to avoid any prejudice to the interests and reputation of the Organization (pursuant to sec. 11.3(c) of ST/AI/2017/1). The Applicant failed to discharge the burden of establishing that the contested decision was arbitrary or capricious, motivated by prejudice or other extraneous factors, or was flawed by procedural irregularity or error of...

The UNAT observed that the Secretary-General elected to limit the scope of his appeal only against the findings of the UNDT with respect to two of nine instances of alleged misconduct by the former staff member.  The UNAT further acknowledged that the Secretary-General’s contention was that the UNDT erred in law when it applied the legal tests for harassment and sexual harassment to the two incidents.  

Nonetheless, the UNAT held that to determine the issue on appeal required more than simply an application of the correct legal test.  To reach any conclusions requires more than simply...

The UNAT considered the central tenet of the staff member’s case, which was that he held the necessary academic qualifications for the role, but that the selected candidate did not.  The UNAT concluded that the educational specifications in the job vacancy announcement were a minimum threshold, but not the determining factor in the selection.  The UNAT held that both the staff member and the selected candidate met the threshold academic qualifications, even though they obtained them by different means.  The UNAT rejected the claim that the ITLOS should not have taken into account that the...

The Appeals Tribunal found, in relation to Mr. Qasem’s exclusion from consideration for the Acting Head position, that the UNRWA DT erred in finding Mr. Qasem’s application not receivable. The Appeals Tribunal however found that in the circumstances of this case, it was in the interest of judicial economy to review the case on the merits without remand. The Appeals Tribunal found that while the Administration had unlawfully excluded Mr. Qasem’s application from consideration, this irregularity had no impact on the selection decision.  Considering Mr. Qasem’s performance, administrative and...

The Tribunal noted that the Applicant’s challenges/complaints did not derive from one clear administrative decision. The first challenge was addressed to an alleged failure by the Administration to fully comply with sec. 2.4 ST/AI/1998/9 (System for the classification of posts). The second one was based on the Applicant’s apparent assumption that he should have been upgraded/promoted to GS-7 level after the upward reclassification of the post he was encumbering.

As a result, the Tribunal interpreted the application as a whole to determine exactly the starting point of the Applicant’s...

The UNAT rejected the new arguments and evidence submitted to the Appeals Tribunal for the first time that were aimed to show that Mr. El-Anani had not read the attachment of the e-mail that communicated the disciplinary sanction.

The UNAT confirmed that, the two Microsoft Outlook notification records acknowledged by Mr. El-Anani indicated that the contested decision had been delivered to and read by him on 28 March 2023 and that he was therefore required to file his application with the UNDT by no later than 26 June 2023. Since Mr. Al-Anani did not file the application until 28 June 2023...

The UNAT noted that the UNRWA DT had ordered each party to nominate a psychiatrist, who in turn were to designate a third psychiatrist to review whether the staff member’s mental condition at the time he committed the burglary, sentencing for which had been the grounds for his separation in the interest of the Agency.The Commissioner-General failed to comply with this instruction, without explanation, thereby leaving the UNRWA DT with no medical information about AAW's condition at the time of the burglary.

The UNAT found that the Commissioner-General had clearly and manifestly abused the...

The UNAT noted that the reclassification request was made by UNIFIL and not by the staff member.

The UNAT held that although extensive delays occurred before the request for reclassification was determined by the Administration, no final reclassification decision had been taken at the time the application was filed to the UNDT by the staff member.  Accordingly, since no decision had been made yet, she could not have experienced a direct adverse effect on the terms of her appointment.  The fact that there were delays in the reclassification decision does not change the analysis.  It is a...

The UNAT first observed that the staff member dedicated parts of his appeal brief to challenging the findings of fact in an earlier UNDT judgment concerning his disciplinary case.  The UNAT held that he was estopped from doing so because he did not appeal this earlier UNDT judgment.

The UNAT was satisfied that when the UNDT reviewed the disciplinary sanction imposed, the UNDT properly considered previous cases involving comparable misconduct, as well as aggravating and mitigating factors.  The mitigating factors raised by the staff member were considered by the Administration, but they simply...