Respondent’s Counsel filed a motion seeking an extension of the time limit to file the Respondent’s reply on several grounds, including exigencies of service. The Respondent was enjoined to submit a proper application requesting that he should be allowed to take part in the proceedings. The determination of whether he was going to be authorized to file a reply was going to be taken in the light of the Respondent’s motion.
This judgment is confined to whether the applicant should have access to the report. The applicant was ordered be given access to the panel’s report, subject to an undertaking of confidentiality.
Decisions made prior to 2 April 2009 are not excluded from being challenged before the Dispute Tribunal. Outcome: The application was held to be receivable and the motion to dismiss was denied. The instant case was also held to be exceptional, deserving of the waiver and extension of the time limits. The staff member was granted two weeks to file and serve a revised application.
Motion for extension of time was refused. Abuse of process of the Tribunal.
The notes taken by the panel contain material that is or may well be relevant to the applicant’s case and therefore they should be provided to the applicant. Outcome: The notes taken by the panel to be provided to the applicant, subject to the applicant making an appropriate confidentiality undertaking.
The “reason to believe” must be more than mere speculation or suspicion: it must be reasonable and hence based on facts sufficiently well founded – though of course, not necessarily proved – to rationally incline the mind of the decision maker to the belief. It is clear that the question is one of fact and degree in which the decision maker is bound to act reasonably but which necessarily involves the exercise of judgment. It is inaccurate to refer to such a judgment as the exercise of a discretion. If the USG in this case had in fact decided that there was “reason to believe” that the...
Outcome: In the exercise of its discretion under article 35 of the Rules of Procedure, the Tribunal found that it would be in the interests of justice to grant the respondent an extension of time for the filing of his reply until 21 December 2009, in order to allow the Tribunal to proceed with this matter without any further delays.
As the Applicants did not respond at all to the Tribunal’s requests, they therefore must be deemed to have abandoned the legal proceedings they instituted.Outcome: Application was dismissed.
As the Applicants did not respond at all to the Tribunal’s requests, they therefore must be deemed to have abandoned the legal proceedings they instituted.Outcome: Application was dismissed.
Pursuant to Article 10.1 of the Rules of Procedure, a respondent that fails to file its reply on time is barred from taking part in the proceedings, except with the permission of the Dispute Tribunal. In this particular case, to attain a fair and expeditious disposal of the case and to do justice to the parties it was necessary for the respondent to file a reply. Outcome: The judge exercised her discretion pursuant to Articles 10.1 and 19 of the Rules of Procedure to grant leave to the respondent to take part in the proceedings and to file its reply out of time.
