i. Whether the Applicant’s suspension of 26 May 2006 was lawful: The Tribunal found that the Chief of Security/UNON unilaterally and verbally suspended the Applicant in breach of the Staff Rules at that time. It was noted that such a decision could only be made by the Assistant Secretary-General, Office of Human Resources Management (ASG/OHRM) who was the properly delegated individual. Further, the Applicant was not given reasons for his suspension and the suspension was not made in conjunction with a charge of misconduct. ii. Whether the Applicant was lawfully placed on SLWFP: The Tribunal...
Agreement on Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations concluded between the Swiss Federal Council and the Secretary General of the United Nations on 19 April 1946
Allegations of domestic violence and conflicts over child custody, maintenance or paternity are properly matters for a criminal court and family court to entertain. The Organization has no business using its administrative procedures to involve itself in a personal dispute when other appropriate legal channels were available to the parties to sort out their rights and responsibilities. The unilateral extension of the Applicant’s temporary assignment to Addis Ababa beyond the agreed one month amounted to bias, abuse of authority and a breach of the Applicant’s due process rights.The Applicant...
The Tribunal found that the Applicant should have been given a one-year extension in Entebbe so that he would have been entitled to the benefits and entitlements that ordinarily accompany such a contract. Receivability: The Tribunal concluded that there was an administrative decision in that the Applicant was challenging a continuum of events - the repeated short-term renewal of his appointment stemming from the decision of the Government of Sudan to oust him from its territory. The Tribunal held that this was a decision of “individual application” with “direct legal consequences” to the...
The Tribunal found that: 1) The DG failed in her legal obligation to review and promptly appoint an investigation panel into the Applicant’s complaint of prohibited conduct and that the delay was unlawful and resulted in serious consequences for the Applicant. 2) The instigation by DSS UNON of the detention and charging of the Applicant by the Kenya Police without a waiver of immunity by the Secretary-General was unlawful. 3) DSS UNON acted covertly without the knowledge of the Director-General or the United Nations Headquarters in its dealings with the Kenya Police on 21 August. This...
Receivability: The Tribunal concluded that MEU had taken a rather restrictive view of the nature of the Applicant’s request when it deemed it to be irreceivable. While it cannot be disputed that the Applicant requested closure of the investigation against him, and the investigation was closed, he also listed a number of instances that, in his view amounted to “violations of procedural fairness”. The procedural matters did not exist in a vacuum but were connected to the investigation. The closure of the investigation notwithstanding, the Tribunal found that there were still live issues that...
The applicability of the duty of care to International Organizations had already been addressed in the earliest years of the United Nations: in its Resolution 258/III of December 3, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly raised “with greater urgency … the question of the arrangements to be made by the United Nations with a view of ensuring to its agents the fullest measure of protection”. The duty of care was formally addressed in ST/SGB/2009/7 (Staff Rules - Staff Regulations of the United Nations and provisional Staff Rules), by requiring the Secretary-General to ensure, having regard to...
Receivability Immunities have been incorporated into the terms of appointment of United Nations staff members—including at the highest level of the Organization’s legal order and ever since its inception—thereby becoming part and parcel of their status and conditions of service. Furthermore, a decision to waive the immunity of a given staff member has evident—potentially dramatic—effects on his or her legal situation. Thus, the contested decision meets all the features of the definition of an administrative decision adopted by the Appeals Tribunal. Accordingly, the Tribunal found the...