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According to section 9.4 of the staff selection system, a Hiring Manager may lawfully select from a pool of pre-screened candidates without further assessment or referral to a central review body. However, in the case at hand, the Hiring Manager decided to establish a Panel of three senior language professionals to conduct informal interviews with the pre-selected candidates, including the Applicant. There is no provision in the Staff Rules preventing these interviews from being held in Russian. The Applicant further contends that he was discriminated since he has been serving in a Regional...

The Applicant¡¯s performance appraisal was fair and supported by the facts in evidence. The Administration was justified in deciding not to extend the Applicant¡¯s temporary appointment for poor performance. There was no justification to extend the Applicant¡¯s appointment beyond the maximum 364 days. The Applicant filed a complaint of harassment after she had received the request for management evaluation. She was therefore not able to show a link between her complaint and the decision not to renew her appointment given that the decision occurred months before the filing of the complaint. There...

Under Sanwidi, it is not for the Tribunal to review the wisdom of the USG/DGACM¡¯s decision among other all viable options, but rather to assess the legality by which the decision was reached. In the given circumstances, the Tribunal finds that the decision to transfer the Applicant was not ¡°arbitrary or capricious, motivated by prejudice or extraneous factors¡± with reference to Chemingui, or that ¡°relevant matters [were] ignored and irrelevant matters considered¡± or the decision was ¡°absurd or perverse¡± as per Sanwidi. By itself, the Tribunal therefore finds no issue in the transfer decision...

The authority to grant an SPA, which, at Annex IV to ST/SGB/2019/2, is delegated to Heads of entity (D-1 and below) and which the Officer in Charge exercised in handling the SPA request is different from the authority to grant an ex gratia payment. The Applicant did not provide any evidence to prove that the authority to award an ex gratia payment was at any point delegated from the USG/DMSPC. In the absence of evidence of express transmission of authority, the Tribunal was not satisfied with the Applicant¡¯s assertion that the Acting Director of the Admiistrative Services Division had...

The authority to grant an SPA, which, at Annex IV to ST/SGB/2019/2, is delegated to Heads of entity (D-1 and below) and which the Officer in Charge exercised in handling the SPA request is different from the authority to grant an ex gratia payment. The Applicant did not provide any evidence to prove that the authority to award an ex gratia payment was at any point delegated from the USG/DMSPC. In the absence of evidence of express transmission of authority the Tribunal was not satisfied with the Applicant¡¯s assertion that the Acting Director of the Administrative Services Division had...

The Tribunal found that the post encumbered by the Applicant was abolished due to a restructuring exercise in UNAKRT linked to budgetary restrictions and the implementation of Umoja, which rendered the Applicant¡¯s position redundant. The Tribunal noted that the Organization is not bound to initiate a formal consultation process with a staff member before deciding to abolish his/her post. In any event, consultation is not equivalent to negotiation, and it is not necessary for the Administration to secure consent or agreement of the consulted party. The Tribunal found that the Organization did...

The Tribunal found the application receivable because: 1)Although the Applicants, who were self-represented, referred to and addressed some of the findings in the management evaluation response at section VII of their application, the applications were evidently not directed at the Management Evaluation Unit response but rather at the decision not to renew their appointments beyond 30 June 2019. 2)The 5 April 2019 notice was not unambiguous and the non-extension decision may have been interpreted as conditioned upon the future General Assembly resolution on the budget. The communication dated...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

Receivability The Applications were found receivable for the following reasons: 1) Staff rule 11.2(a) had been observed because the Applicants requested management evaluation timeously. 2) Individual administrative decisions, namely, to apply the new post adjustment in relation to the Applicants, had been issued and implemented, as demonstrated by their salary slips of February 2018. 3) The transitional allowance was not a prefatory act, but a corollary to the lowering of a pay component. 4) The Tribunal rejected the claim that discretion is a criterion for receivability. Merits The ICSC¡¯s...

The Tribunal found that neither JA nor TA were refugees, or beneficiaries of UNHCR assistance or fell within the prohibitions stipulated in staff rule 1.2(e). The Tribunal did not agree with the Respondent that unsubstantiated and scandalous allegations made against a staff member are conclusive evidence that the staff member was responsible for the reputational damage caused thereby to the Organization. The Applicant had no control over what the media chose to report. Hence, UNHCR basing its decision on these facts was unlawful as they were extraneous to the case at hand and irrelevant. The...

The first contested decision ¨C the ICSC refusal to address the Applicant¡¯s request for payment of compensation for the sexual harassment she was subjected to by the ISCS Chair is moot because the current Chair of the ICSC eventually responded to the Applicant¡¯s request. The Chair of the ICSC is not staff of the Secretariat and therefore falls outside the scope of ST/SGB/2008/5, or the Staff Regulations and Rules. The ICSC decision not to compensate the Applicant for the sexual harassment she was subjected to by the former Chair (second contested decision) is not attributable to the Secretary...

The Tribunal finds that the mere fact that the Applicant was not invited to a competencybased interview following the written assessment did not give rise to an administrative decision, and that such a step of the selection process may only be challenged in the context of an application against a specific decision with clear and direct legal consequences on the Applicant, such as the final selection decision. The Tribunal has accepted in the past that certain intermediate decisions in a selection process¡ªsuch as when a candidate is found not suitable/ineligible for a given post¡ª constitute...

The Tribunal finds that the mere fact that the Applicant was not invited to a competencybased interview following the written assessment did not give rise to an administrative decision, and that such a step of the selection process may only be challenged in the context of an application against a specific decision with clear and direct legal consequences on the Applicant, such as the final selection decision. The Tribunal has accepted in the past that certain intermediate decisions in a selection process¡ªsuch as when a candidate is found not suitable/ineligible for a given post¡ª constitute...

With regard to GJO No. 425940, the Tribunal found that the Applicant had been notified on 19 February 2014 that his application had been unsuccessful. The Applicant did not request management evaluation of that decision until over four years later. Consequently, the Tribunal held that the claim relating to GJO No. 425940 was not receivable ratione materiae and it was dismissed. For GJO No. 76109, the Tribunal held that the Applicant had not satisfied his burden of proof to show through clear and convincing evidence that the Administration did not give his candidacy fair and adequate...

The Tribunal noted that there was no evidence that UNOPS Administration approved the Applicant¡¯s sick leave. Therefore, given that the Applicant was separated from service effective 31 March 2018 and that no sick leave beyond that date had been approved by the UNOPS Administration, the Tribunal found that there was no sick leave to ¡°terminate or retract¡± as claimed by the Applicant. Having said the above, the Tribunal found that the effective content of the challenged decision communicated to the Applicant on 5 April 2018 concerned the non-extension of her fixed-term appointment for the sole...