51ÁÔÆæ

UNAT held that the Appellant did not meet the burden of showing that the UNDT Judgment was defective on the grounds outlined in Article 2(1) of the UNAT Statute. UNAT held that UNDT fully and fairly considered the Appellant¡¯s allegations and there was no error of law or fact in the UNDT Judgment. UNAT held that there was no evidence that the Appellant¡¯s gender or status of being on maternity leave factored into the decision not to renew her contract. UNAT held that the reasons proffered by the Administration for not renewing the Appellant¡¯s fixed-term appointment, namely the lack of funding...

By including a paragraph about the possibility for a re-entrant to restore his or her prior contributory service under certain conditions in the A/2 form for designation of the recipient of a residual settlement, the Fund discharged its obligation to notify re-entrants such as Mr Duflos. There was no duty on the part of the Pension Fund to provide further information or clarification in that regard in the absence of any request from Mr. Duflos for information or clarification.

As a preliminary matter, UNAT declined Mr. Hossain¡¯s request for an in-person hearing and held that Mr. Hossain did not explain, at least sufficiently, why his appeal should be dealt with other than on papers filed. UNAT held that UNDT erred in law by rejecting Mr. Hossain¡¯s proceedings other than on their merits and for threshold jurisdictional reasons that it was empowered to examine and assist to establish. UNAT held that the UNDT, while perhaps disposing of the case in an expeditious way, did not do so fairly, or certainly justly, as between the parties. UNAT admitted on appeal the...

UNAT agreed that the time limit for requesting management evaluation against an administrative decision starts once a staff member has been notified of the decision in writing and in clear and unequivocal terms, which in this case was 18 September 2018. UNAT also agreed that the subsequent communications were mere reiterations of the prior decision, and a staff member cannot reset the time for management review by asking for a confirmation of an administrative decision that was communicated to him earlier. The date cannot be unilaterally set by the staff member, and as such, it cannot be the...

The Secretary-General appealed on the premise that UNDT improperly substituted its decision for that of the Administration. UNAT disagreed and found that the reason UNDT rescinded the decision was because it suffered from incoherence, i.e. the reasons provided for singling out the staff member with a shorter extension of his FTA changed over time and were not supported by the facts. UNAT also noted the ex post facto reasons for selecting the cross-appellant rather than one of the other staff members provide an inadequate justification, especially in light of the incoherence and the fact that...

Where evidence is capable of establishing a likelihood of a connection between potentially extraneous considerations and a failure to obtain a renewal of a contract, summary dismissal is unlikely to be warranted. Where one party raises sufficient material suggesting a particular fact or facts and the other party has the sole means of refuting that inference, then an evidentiary burden to call that evidence will ordinarily arise so that a failure to do so will make it relatively easy for the other party to treat the fact as proven. Outcome: The motion for summary judgment was dismissed, without...

The Applicant filed a motion for interim measures requesting that the Tribunal order the Ethics Office to deliver recommendations on his case with respect to whistle-blowing retaliation; and to find a prima-facie violation of the Applicant¡¯s due-process rights concerning the non-renewal of his fixed-term contract with UNDP. The Tribunal rejected the motion to order the Ethics Office to deliver its recommendations and decided that the alleged violation of the Applicant¡¯s due process rights concerning the non-renewal of his fixed-term contract would be addressed during the review of the...

UNDP had an obligation to its staff to make it clear that the time frame for making applications for ad hoc posts might be less than the two weeks period mandated for QUARRY positions. The respondent, by virtue of the settlement agreement, was obliged to comply, amongst other things, with the Guidelines for the Recruitment and Selection of UNDP Staff, especially since they dealt with the subject of the agreement, namely support for the applicant¡¯s attempts to obtain another post. Where there was a particular duty to inform imposed by the settlement agreement and the failure to inform...

There was no basis for inferring the non-renewal was due to irrelevant or improper considerations. Both the applicant and the DCD believed they were telling the truth; their different perspectives simply led them to a different understanding of what had been said. Outcome: The appeal dismissed.

Staff members with permanent appointments are afforded additional protections, particularly when nearing retirement age. Administration¡¯s obligation to protect the position of a permanent staff member includes, at least, an enquiry and the taking of reasonable steps to ascertain if there were any suitable positions available for the staff member. The staff member is required to cooperate in this search but the responsibility for protecting the position of the permanent employee is primarily with the employer.The universal obligation of both employee and employer to act in good faith towards...