51ÁÔÆæ

The Tribunal ruled that the selection procedure was flawed on grounds that: (a) first and foremost, the evaluations of the candidates as agreed to by the panel had been substantially modified prior to their transmission to the Director-General, UNOG, for the final decision, without the approval of the panel members; (b) the panel gave the Applicants misleading instructions during the interview that impacted negatively on their ratings; (c) the Director-General, UNOG, was not demonstrably provided with a documented record enabling him to make an informed selection decision; (d) no written...

Legitimate expectation ¨C The Country Office¡¯s Core Management Group meeting of 29 February 2012 decided that all international staff, including the Applicant, would be extended for one year and the Applicant knew of the decision. This Tribunal finds that the decision taken at a regular and proper Country Office Core Management Group meeting to extend the contract of a staff member, which decision is embodied in open recorded minutes and accessible to staff members, carries far greater weight than any ¡®express promise¡¯ that can be made to the said staff member about extending his contract. The...

The UNDT decided to join both cases and following a review of the procedure followed, found both decisions to be illegal. It ordered the rescission of both decisions and that a new decision be taken on the Applicant¡¯s complaint. It also considered that the irregularities committed resulted in undue delay in the handling of the complaint, which caused the Applicant moral harm warranting compensation of 8,000 Swiss francs.

The UNDT found that, although the JO was canceled and re-issued, there were still outstanding relief claims for adjudication, therefore, the application was not moot. The UNDT rejected the Applicant¡¯s request for removal of the Representative of the Secretary-General (¡°RSG¡±) for the Investments of the UNJSPF from the recruitment process, finding that this request pertained to the re-issued job opening. The UNDT rejected the Applicant¡¯s request to refer the case for accountability and his claims for legal costs and moral damages. The application was dismissed.

The UNDT found, on the one hand, that UNAMA decision to close the case given the conclusions of the investigation constituted a valid exercise of discretion by the Administration, and that the Organization did not breach the Applicant¡¯s rights by not sharing the full investigation report with her. On the other hand, the Tribunal found that UNAMA failed to take diligent action with respect to the Applicant¡¯s complaint and that it incurred inordinate delays both in reviewing and assessing the Applicant¡¯s complaint and in setting up a fact-finding panel and conducting the investigation into her...

Moral damages ¨C As held in Asariotis 2013-UNAT-309, damages for a moral injury may arise from a breach of the employee¡¯s substantive entitlements arising from his or her contract of employment and/or from a breach of the procedural due process entitlements therein guaranteed (be they specifically designated in the Staff Regulations and Rules or arising from the principles of natural justice). Where the breach is of a fundamental nature, the breach may of itself give rise to an award of moral damages, not in any punitive sense for the fact of the breach having occurred, but rather by virtue of...

Receivability: The Tribunal concluded that MEU had taken a rather restrictive view of the nature of the Applicant¡¯s request when it deemed it to be irreceivable. While it cannot be disputed that the Applicant requested closure of the investigation against him, and the investigation was closed, he also listed a number of instances that, in his view amounted to ¡°violations of procedural fairness¡±. The procedural matters did not exist in a vacuum but were connected to the investigation. The closure of the investigation notwithstanding, the Tribunal found that there were still live issues that...

Home leave: The Tribunal concluded that there is nothing in staff rule 5.2 which indicates that the extension or the duration of the extension of a contract of employment is to be decided along with the sick leave entitlements of a staff member. Extension and sick leave cannot be merged to motivate a decision on whether to extend a contract or not. The entitlement to home leave is premised on 12 months service at a designated duty station with the sole condition that the service of the staff member is expected to continue at least three months after the staff member returns to the duty station...

The UNDT reviewed the procedure followed by the ASG/OHRM to reach her decision to close the complaint, and found that although the Chief, JMS, did not follow the correct procedure of consulting with the UN Medical Director about the request for the Applicant not to attend work, it was open to the ASG/OHRM to conclude that the conduct of the Chief, JMS, did not warrant any disciplinary or administrative action. Indeed, the Tribunal considered that the Chief, JMS, faced a complex situation, which included the Applicant¡¯s illness and the potential for disrupting patients of the JMS clinic. The...

The Tribunal found that the decision not to convoke the Applicant to the YPP in Public Information was not a separate administrative decision, since he had never applied to take that exam. The decision not to convoke him to the YPP in Administration was taken by the Central Examinations Board (¡°CEB¡±), upon appeal, on the grounds that the Applicant did not fulfill the educational requirements. The Tribunal found that that decision was null and void, since the CEB, which held its meeting by email exchanges, did not have the required quorum and the decision was made after the date of the exam...