51ÁÔÆæ

Receivability: The letter of November 2007 was sent before the contested decisions had been made. The Applicant thus cannot be appealing against those decisions. The letter of 4 March 2008 was sent by the Applicant within the required two-month period but it was not addressed to the Secretary-General. If this letter were properly filed with the Assistant Administrator of UNDP, in accordance with the practice of UNDP to conduct its own administrative review, it remains that this letter could not trigger an administrative review as the Applicant did not state in clear terms that she was...

Receivability: The Applicant¡¯s request for administrative review was made outside the mandatory time limit. In accordance with article 8.3 of the Dispute Tribunal¡¯s Statute, the Tribunal may not suspend or waive the deadlines in the Staff Rules concerning requests for administrative review or management evaluation. There is no basis in the former Staff Rules for finding that time to request an administrative review should only be calculated from the end of the involvement of the Ombudsperson. The terms of reference of the Joint Ombudsperson are inconsistent with the Staff Rules. The...

The impugned decision was suspended until when the matter would be heard and determined on the merits.

Time limits for requesting administrative review: Due to the pronouncement of the Appeals Tribunal in Costa, the Dispute Tribunal is unable to suspend or waive deadlines with respect to administrative review or management evaluation, irrespective of the circumstances of each case. Unless an appropriate case is put before the Appeals Tribunal and it decides to limit the seemingly absolute application of the pronouncements of Costa as it currently stands, this Tribunal is bound to follow them, even where sick leave or other intervening events would render filing impossible for an applicant...

He filed his request for administrative review on 2 December 2008 and his application before the Tribunal on 13 January 2010. The Tribunal found that the Applicant was first informed of the contested decision, in writing, on 5 February 2008, and that he also received written reiterations of the same decision in March and April 2008. The Tribunal found that the Applicant failed to request administrative review of the decision not to renew his contract within the applicable time limit and that the Tribunal was proscribed, under Costa 2010-UNAT-036, from waiving it. The Tribunal found that, even...

The Tribunal rejected the application as time-barred because the Applicant had failed to request management evaluation of the contested decision within the established time limit. Authority of the Tribunal to waive the deadlines for management evaluation: The Appeals Tribunal held in several judgments that pursuant to article 8.3 of its Statute, the Dispute Tribunal has no authority to waive the deadline for management evaluation, including where exceptional circumstances may have prevented the staff member from complying with the deadline. Authority of the Secretary-General to waive the...

The Respondent submitted, inter alia, that the present application was time-barred as it was not filed within 90 days from the date of receipt by the Applicant of the management evaluation. The Applicant submitted that the filing of the present application was delayed due to exceptional circumstances, namely his attempts to resolve the matter informally, including with the assistance of OSLA. The Tribunal found that the application was filed more than four months after the expiration of the relevant time period. The Tribunal further found that the Applicant¡¯s informal discussions with the...

The Tribunal, noting that the Applicant had failed 51ÁÔÆæ the time limit set out in former staff rule 111.2(a), focused solely on whether there were ¡°exceptional circumstances¡± to warrant a waiver of the time limit. The Tribunal found that the Applicant¡¯s mere assertion that she was unable to follow-up and was incapable of submitting a reasoned appeal as a result of psychological and professional stress was inadequate to warrant a waiver of the time limits. Based on the limited submissions of the Applicant, the Tribunal was unable to establish any causal relation between her state of...

Request for review: The Administration should not be excessively formalistic and demand that for a request for review to be considered as such, it must necessarily be addressed to the Secretary-General. However, such a request must be formulated in sufficiently clear terms to be regarded by its addressee as a formal request for review¡ªthat is, as the first compulsory step initiating the appeals procedure provided for by former staff rule 111.2(a)¡ªwhich s/he must then forward to the Secretary-General. Exceptional circumstances/duty to inform staff members: There is no provision requiring the...

The Tribunal found that the application was receivable ratione temporis but rejected it on the merits, on the ground that the post whose functions the Applicant carried out was not vacant or temporarily vacant within the meaning of ST/AI/1999/17. The Tribunal further rejected the Applicant¡¯s request for moral damages. Receivability ratione temporis: The serious health problem suffered by the Applicant constituted an exceptional circumstance justifying the delay in filing his application. The short period of time between the end of his sick leave and the filing of his application shows that the...