The Tribunal noted that, firstly, the Applicant does not contest an administrative decision taken by the Secretary-General as the Chief Administrative Officer of the United Nations. Secondly, FAO has not concluded a special agreement with the Secretary-General, under art. 2.5 of the Tribunal’s Statute, to accept the terms of the Tribunal’s jurisdiction.
Consequently, the Tribunal found that it was not competent to examine the present application.
The UNAT held that the UNDT committed an error of procedure such that it affected the outcome of the case in not holding an oral hearing and relying significantly on the OAIS investigation report to corroborate the truth of the events alleged by the Complainant, when there was no direct witnesses to the alleged misconduct and all the witnesses relied upon by the OAIS investigators obtained their evidence and information from the Complainant. As such, the UNAT concluded that their evidence was hearsay evidence and that the prejudice to the Appellant in admitting and relying upon this evidence...
The UNAT considered an appeal by the staff member.
The UNAT found that the UNDT had not erred in fact when it had not considered separation on retirement, mentioned in the separation notice, to be the reason for the contested decision; the mention of retirement had no import on the staff member’s separation. The UNAT was of the view that the letter informing her of the expiry of her fixed-term appointment was in line with the abolition of the post she encumbered.
The UNAT noted that judicial review in the context of suspension of action is different from the review conducted by the Tribunal...
The UNAT considered three appeals by the applicant.
The UNAT found that the impugned Order was an interlocutory order and was obviously beyond the competence of the UNAT.
The UNAT held that the applicant had not submitted documents to prove being a United Nations staff member and that he had no legal standing before the UNDT. The UNAT noted that there was no evidence of an offer of appointment having been issued to him for either post. Second, he failed to complete the pre-recruitment formalities for both posts. Third, he failed to confirm, within a reasonable time, his interest and...
Mr. Bwalya appealed.
The UNAT found that Mr. Bwalya had not demonstrated that the UNDT erred in finding that it had been established by clear and convincing evidence that he had committed misconduct by instructing a UNDP staff member to forge a backdated Memorandum of Understanding between the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and the private firm Digata and to make a misrepresentation in a second document, intentionally acting to avoid or deviate from UNDP’s Financial Regulations, Rules and Procedures through the creation of these documents, and demonstrating favouritism in the award of a...
The issue in this case is whether EG and SEG consist of two independent benefits that can be granted in combination.
Pursuant to sec. 6.1(a) of ST/AI/2018/2/Amend.1, the overall maximum amount of SEG shall be equal to the upper limit of the top bracket of the global sliding scale applicable to the education grant scheme. The law does not allow an interpretation where EG and SEG can be “stacked”.
Indeed, the difference between EG and SEG is in the percentages of reimbursement that eligible staff members are entitled to receive. This difference in reimbursement percentage addresses the...
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...
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...
The Tribunal decided on its own initiative and in accordance with art. 9 of its Rules of Procedure, to adjudicate the present application by way of summary judgement.
The Tribunal noted that in accordance with art. 8.4 of the Tribunal’s Statute and art. 7.6 of its Rules of Procedure, an application shall not be receivable if it is filed more than three years after the applicant’s receipt of the contested administrative decision. The Applicant filed her application on 5 March 2023 indicating that the contested decision was made in October 1995, that is, more than 27 years earlier. Consequently...
The written reprimand
Factual basis for the imposition of the measure
UNPAD, as an ad hoc special interest group, advocates for issues relating to conditions of work pertaining to staff members of African descent in the United Nations.
UNOMS is established “to make available confidential services of impartial and independent persons to address work-related issues of staff members” (see ST/SGB/2016/7 para 1.1). UNOMS is guided in its work by four core principles, namely independence, confidentiality, neutrality, and informality.
It appeared from the information on record that the Applicant...
