The Tribunal found that a fundamental procedural flaw had occurred since the same staff member had fulfilled the roles of both the Applicant’s first and second reporting officers. However, no financial compensation was warranted, as the Applicant did not demonstrate that he sustained any material or moral damage stemming from this breach.
ST/AI/2010/5
The Tribunal found that none of the alleged flaws was substantiated.
The UNDT found that the element of the application concerning conversion to permanent appointment was not receivable as the Applicant had not requested management evaluation of this decision. In respect to the receivable elements of the application, the UNDT found that the Applicant had no legitimate expectation of renewal. However, the Tribunal found that the decision not to renew his appointment was unlawful, as it was based on a flawed performance management process. In particular, in the Applicant’s first performance cycle, there were significant delays in the implementation of the various...
Although the proceedings of the rebuttal panel had been completed and notified to the Applicant in July 2011, he did not move the Tribunal to waive the deadlines pursuant to art. 35 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure. The Applicant was required to submit a request for management evaluation but he did not do so.
UNDT held that the non-renewal of the Applicant’s contract was unlawful and that this decision was made in breach of his due process rights. UNDT held that the Panel erred when it recommended that the Applicant’s contract should not be renewed. UNDT noted that the Administrative Instruction ST/AI/2010/5 does not grant a rebuttal panel the power to make recommendations on the extension or termination of a staff member’s contract. UNDT also noted that not all procedural errors are prejudicial and not all procedural errors violate a party’s due process rights, and it behooves the Tribunal to...
The Dispute Tribunal found that the contested decision was lawful and rejected the application. Application of ST/AI/2010/5 on Performance Management and Development System: This administrative instruction does not apply to UNFPA, which is a separately administered fund, as it has not explicitly accepted its applicability, as per ST/SGB/2004/9 on Procedures for the promulgation of administrative issuances. Obligation to provide an opportunity to improve performance prior to non-renewal: Absent any specific provision in the applicable rules, the Organization has no legal obligation to take any...
The Tribunal held that the Applicant’s claims relating to the performance evaluation of his FRO and his SRO’s theoretical negative influence of future performance appraisals to the Applicant’s detriment were not receivable because they either did not form part of the terms and conditions of his employment or had no direct legal consequences on his terms and conditions of employment. With respect to the negative comments and rating of the SRO in his 2015-2016 e-PAS, the Tribunal noted the successful roll-back of the e-PAS and concluded that there no longer existed a live issue because he had...
The application was receivable because there was a reviewable administrative decision stemming from the SRO’s negative comments and rating in the Applicant’s performance appraisal because the Applicant was granted only a six-month contract instead of the one year appointment that he was granted when he initially entered on duty with UNSMIL. Thus, the SRO’s comments had direct legal consequences for the Applicant in that he ended up with a shorter term of appointment. Although the Respondent had made assurances to the Applicant that the 2015-2016 e- PAS would be rolled back and re-created, his...
The Dispute Tribunal found that the Applicant did not manage to lift her burden of proving that the non-renewal of her contract was not due to poor performance and found instead that the decision was lawful.
The decision not to renew the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment
The Tribunal found that there were no good reasons to depart from the principle of renewal pending completion of a rebuttal process. The Tribunal found that the Applicant’s performance was not fairly evaluated, notably during the third and fourth evaluation cycles. Thus, these performance appraisals could not be relied upon to justify a decision not to renew the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment. As a consequence, the Tribunal found that the third reason for not renewing the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment, namely that she...