UNAT considered an appeal of UNDT Order No. 087 by Ms Barud. UNAT dismissed her motion to admit additional documents related to the substantive issue of justification for the non-renewal of her contract, due to their lack of relevance to the matter for decision by UNAT on her application for a suspension of action. UNAT noted that there was no reason why these documents could not be used by Ms Barud for the substantive matter, which was, at that time, before UNDT. UNAT held that the appeal failed on the grounds that Ms Barud did not apply for a suspension within the statutory time limit. In...
Article 14.1
The suspension of action was granted and the adverse report ordered to be removed from the applicant’s official status file pending the outcome of the substantive proceeding.
The application was not receivable under article 13 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure because at the time the application was filed, there was no management evaluation pending. It was only on 21 October 2009 that the Tribunal received a copy of the request for management evaluation of the decision of 5 October 2009. The application was not receivable under article 14 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure because the administrative decision dated 5 October 2009 to fill the post related to an appointment and could not be the subject of interim relief in view of the exception contained in article 14...
The decision not to renew the Applicant’s contract was prima facie unlawful because it appeared to be in breach of the Organization’s Rules and in breach of international legal norms relating to due process. On the question of urgency, the Applicant had been informed that his contract would be terminated on 3 September 2009. Notwithstanding that it had allegedly been agreed that the contract would be extended after 3 September 2009, the matter was still urgent because this was not the first time that this particular strategy had been used by the Respondent towards the Applicant. Having...
ST/AI/292, dated 15 July 1982, provides measures in relation to the filing of adverse materials in personnel records, which measures were supposed to be interim in nature. In the context of the current framework of norms, ST/AI/292 alone does not provide adequate “rebuttal” procedures for short-term staff. The creation of two classes of short-term staff which potentially occurs via ST/AI/2002/3, based on management discretion is not fair; where the provisions of ST/AI/2002/3 are applied to some short-term staff and not others, this violates the doctrine of equal treatment in like circumstances...
The Tribunal rescinded the contested decisions and awarded USD50,000 in non-pecuniary damages.
The Tribunal found that the provided reason for not renewing the Applicant’s appointment was not properly based on facts and, consequently, that the contested decision was unlawful. To determine remedies, through a subsequent judgment, the Tribunal instructed the parties to file final submissions on the matter taking into account its findings in the instant Judgment.
The Applicant timely requested management evaluation of the contested decision and has met the procedural requirements to have this Tribunal adjudicate her case. The application is therefore receivable ratione materiae. The Tribunal considered that from provisions in ST/AI/2010/5 and ST/AI/2010/4, derives a general principle to complete performance evaluations before separation applicable also to staff members holding a fixed-term appointment. The Tribunal found that the Organization had to make a balancing exercise of the Applicant’s different performance results and could not simply act as...
Receivability In the present case, the Applicants contest the Administration’s decision dated 14 August 2021 to consider Mr. Oming, whom the Administration identified as the spouse of the deceased staff member, as the recipient of a death benefit pursuant to staff rule 9.11(a)(vii). In this respect, the Tribunal recalls that the extension of its jurisdiction to deceased staff members is intended to permit resolution of disputes concerning contractual rights acquired during previous employment by staff members whose contracts have expired (see Arango 2021-UNAT-1120, para. 28). The...