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...
ST/SGB/2010/6
The impugned decision is grossly, patently, incurably and incontrovertibly unlawful. An order suspending the administrative decision pending management evaluation is bound to work injustice in the circumstances.The Application that gave rise to the proceedings and deliberations in this case clearly was brought under a wrong heading when it was filed as a suspension of action application. The Tribunal, in the present circumstances, must in the interest of justice move this matter to the cause list of applications on the merit and accordingly dispose of it fully and on the merits.Article 36 of...
The fact that the attempt to defraud the medical claims system was not successful did not diminish the Applicant’s liability in having made a false claim, as such; his actions destroyed the faith of the Organization in the Applicant which was necessary for continuing employment relationship. Proportionality: Although comparison between other similar cases can be referred to, they should be treated with caution as every case turns on its own facts. In determining whether to lessen the imposed sanction, the Tribunal will consider mitigating circumstance that had not been previously considered....
The Applicant submitted that seeing that the Secretary-General of the United Nations does not have any authority over staff rules at the UNJSPF, the Pension Fund is not precluded from employing a candidate that was rejected by OHRM. The UNDT found that the UNJSPF and OHRM correctly applied the legal provisions by considering that OHRM was responsible for administering the selection process for a post located in the UNJSPF and that the Applicant was not eligible for the post due to the fact that he held a post at a G-4 grade whereas the post to which he had applied was at the G-7 grade, three...
The Tribunal considered that an employer does not have an unqualified right to refuse to accept a resignation and rejected the Applicant’s submissions on receivability. The receivability of any application before the Tribunal is subject to the statutory requirement of article 8.1(c) of the Statute of the Dispute Tribunal, which is categorical that where required, an Applicant must submit a request for management evaluation of a contested decision.
Decisions (a) and (b) are found not receivable and decision (c) is found to be unfounded. The Tribunal also finds that the Applicant’s request for management evaluation (MEU request) included a request for SPA which was not addressed by the Organization. The Applicant did not pursue the applicable procedure established in ST/AI/1998/9. In the absence of an actual administrative decision denying a request for reclassification, the application against the continuous refusal to reclassify his post from the P-4 level to the P-5 level is not receivable.The Applicant’s MEU request indicated that he...
The Tribunal found that the applications were receivable since the contested decisions produced direct legal consequences adversely affecting the Applicants’ terms and conditions of appointment. The Tribunal further found that the chosen period of retroactive application of one year was not only unlawful because it was based on a misconstruction and misapplication of staff rule 3.16 but it was manifestly unreasonable, irrational, and above all unjustifiably discriminatory. It did not amount to a proper exercise of administrative discretion and breached the fundamental principle of equal pay...
Selection process: The Tribunal accepted that in the absence of any incumbent of the D-2 post, the decision of the USG/DFS, as Head of Department, to assume direct responsibility for the recruitment process through the Chief of Staff, was not an improper exercise of discretion.Second set of interviews and composition of the Second Panel: The Tribunal found that the decision to hold a second round of interviews, and the composition of the Panel, did not amount to a procedural irregularity in the particular circumstances of this case.Lengthy delay in the selection procedure: The Tribunal...