51ÁÔÆæ

Grounds for non-renewal: No provision requires the Administration to give the reasons for a non-renewal decision. However, when a staff member contests the non-renewal of his or her contract before the Tribunal, the Organization must provide the reasons for this decision and the staff member has the right to contest the legality of the same.Discretionary power and scope of judicial review: The Administration has discretion to organize its services and thus to finance or not a programme. It is not for the Tribunal to assess the correctness of this kind of decisions.Burden of proof of extraneous...

The Tribunal rejected the application and awarded costs for abuse of process.

The Tribunal noted that the delegation of authority in disciplinary matters from the SG to the USG for Management in July 2009 had not been published and as such lacked a substantial requirement for taking legal effect. Moreover, the Tribunal found that the USG for Management could not further delegate this power to another person, since any kind of ¡°sub-delegation¡± should have been provided for in the initial delegation of authority by the SG to the USG for Management, which was not the case. The decision to dismiss the Applicant was taken by the OIC, USG for Management. The Tribunal found...

The UNDT noted that the contested decision had been rescinded by the Prosecutor, ICTY, and hence the application was moot. The Applicant contended however that the decision had already been implemented since she was no longer assigned any appeals-related work. The UNDT examined whether her new functions were commensurate with her functional title of Senior Appeals Counsel (P-5), and whether the Prosecutor, ICTY, was entitled to assign her to such tasks. It found that pursuant to staff rule 1.2 (c) and Annex IV to ST/AI/234/Rev.1, the Administration had broad discretionary powers when it comes...

Legitimate interest in the outcome of the case: Given that an Applicant has no option of returning to the post he formerly encumbered, any decision regarding the classification of that post cannot impact his rights. There exists no direct legal consequence between any classification decision and his terms of appointment; therefore the application is not receivable.

Reasons for non-renewal: A staff member has a right to ask the administration to provide for reasons of non-renewal of his/her contract; if he/she does not ask, then he/she cannot claim not to have been given reasons for the decision and seek to infer negative inference. Fraught working relationship: If a staff member¡¯s work relationship with his/her superiors has deteriorated to the extent that there is no possibility of salvaging such a relationship, it is within the Administration¡¯s discretion not to renew such a contract.

The UNDT considered that the Applicant¡¯s initial complaint was meeting all the requirements contained in sec. 5.13 of ST/SGB/2008/5. It noted that the decision not to initiate a formal fact-finding investigation was made only six months after the complaint had been lodged hence it did not meet the requirement of ¡®promptness¡¯ contained in sec. 5.3 and sec. 5.14 of ST/SGB/2008/5. Further, the UNDT found that the course of action chosen by the ASG/OHRM, which consisted in asking first the alleged offender for his views, had no legal basis in ST/SGB/2008/5. Having considered the definition of the...

The Tribunal found that the selected candidate did not fulfill the requirement of fluency in French hence his selection was illegal, despite his status as a roster candidate. It further noted that since the Administration had not examined the other candidates, including the Applicant, the latter¡¯s right to full and fair consideration was violated. The Applicant had only requested the rescission of the decision not to select her, without requesting the rescission of the decision to select the successful candidate. The Tribunal rejected the Applicant¡¯s request for rescission and merely ordered...

The Tribunal noted that for an application to be receivable, the decision that is being challenged has to be an ¡°administrative decision¡± under the provisions of the Tribunal¡¯s Statute. In the present case, the abolition of the post at stake had not yet been formally approved by the United Nations General Assembly. The Tribunal found that the mere proposal to abolish a post does not constitute an ¡°administrative decision¡±, because it does not produce ¡°direct legal consequences¡±. Therefore, and since the Applicant did not challenge an administrative decision, the Tribunal decided that her...

The Tribunal found that since the Applicant failed to request the Administration to open a new TVA, and as such to provoke an administrative decision of refusal, the application was irreceivable in this respect. The Tribunal further found that the decision to select another candidate was procedurally flawed since the Applicant, despite her request, was not provided with the names of the members of the Interview Panel. In view of the case history, there is no doubt that the Applicant would have requested a change of Panel members and a reasonable Administrator would have conceded to her request...