51ÁÔÆæ

Administrative decision: The Tribunal held that while the Application appeared to be challenging a decision of the Secretary-General, the fundamental decision being contested was actually the ICSC decision to reclassify the Addis Ababa duty station. Noting that the ICSC is an independent entity, the Tribunal held that: (i) its decision cannot be imputed to the Secretary-General; (ii) it cannot extend its jurisdiction to include decisions made by the ICSC; and(iii) that the Secretary-General has not been vested with any discretionary authority with respect to the implementation of ICSC...

Moral Damages ¨C The need for compensation must be demonstrated by evidence of damages or injuries. The grounds that support an award for moral damages include delay, frustration, distress and anxiety. Damages for moral injury may arise from a breach of the staff member¡¯s substantive entitlements arising from his or her contract of employment and/or from a breach of the procedural due process entitlements therein guaranteed or where there is evidence produced of harm, stress or anxiety caused to the staff member which can be directly linked or reasonably attributed to a breach of his or 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...

Lateral reassignment: The Tribunal held that the decision to laterally transfer the Applicant was lawful as it fulfilled the conditions for such a transfer as set out in Rees. The new post was at the staff member¡¯s grade; the responsibilities involved corresponded to his level; the functions to be performed were commensurate with the Applicant¡¯s competence and skills and the Applicant had substantial experience in the field. Reasons for the contested decision: The Tribunal held that the Applicant¡¯s complaints about the lack of or the adequacy of reasons for the decision were unsubstantiated...

Receivability ¨CThe Applicant¡¯s patience in waiting for the Secretary-General to decide on when to grant him appropriate remedies cannot be used against him. It is not in contention that as soon as he was informed that the Secretary-General had decided that the appropriate remedies he was promised meant no remedies at all, the Applicant approached the Tribunal. The Applicant¡¯s claims in regard to the other administrative decisions of tampering with a published vacancy announcement and the membership of the former incumbent of the position on the interview panel which were affirmed in management...

The instruments invoked by the Applicant did not lend support to the contention about illegality of the abolition of his post occasioned by the fact that a post of a similar functionality would have been subsequently created within ECA. No violation of procedures envisaged in these instruments has been shown. Specifically, neither of these instruments obligated ES/ECA to carry out redeployment or classification of existing Regional Advisor posts in priority over creation of new posts at ECA. The Tribunal found no abuse, arbitrariness or unfairness in the abolition of the Applicant¡¯s post...

Pursuant to staff rule 3.17(ii), the Applicant was required to make a written claim to receive retroactive SPA ¡°within one year following the date on which [she] would have been entitled to the initial payment¡±. This request should have been made within one year of 1 December 2009, that is, by or before 1 December 2010. However, it was only on 5 September 2011 that the Applicant wrote an interoffice memorandum requesting an extension of her SPA at the P-2 level from 1 December 2009 to the then-present time to account for the additional functions that she had been performing. The Applicant...

Noting that there is nothing in the strict interpretation of section 1.2 of ST/SGB/2008/5 to exclude a series of discrete acts performed by more than a single individual from constituting prohibited conduct for which the Organization bears responsibility, the Tribunal found that the Applicant¡¯s allegations of institutionally enabled, or tolerated, harassment did not relate to one off incidents. Under ST/SGB/2008/5, the ES¡¯s duty was to examine the complaint in its entirety to see whether it raised issues of prohibited conduct to which the Applicant may have still been suffering from. Instead...

The decision to refuse further medical evacuation was first notified to the Applicant on 15 July 2014 but he did not request management evaluation until 29 January 2017 after later requests for medical evacuation had been refused. The application was not receivable because subsequent reiterations of the same decision did not have the effect of resetting the clock for management evaluation.

Receivability The Respondent argued that the decision to discontinue the payment of SPA was notified to the Applicant on 10 September 2020 and since the Applicant failed to request a management evaluation by 10 November 2020, the application is not receivable. The Respondent¡¯s argument was rejected. The Tribunal found that the contested decision is not the initial discontinuation of the payment of SPA but rather the the refusal to pay her SPA after certifying officer functions had been assigned to her, which was communicated to her on 25 July 2012. The Applicant timely requested a management...