Following the filing of the application for suspension of action, the Respondent filed a submission stating that UNAMA had agreed to allow the Applicant to retain a lien against her post and, accordingly, the application should be dismissed as moot. In response, the Applicant submitted to the Tribunal that, although UNAMA had agreed to grant her a lien on her post, as a result of this decision not made earlier, she would be placed on special leave without pay due to the exhaustion of her sick leave and annual leave days, pending finalization of arrangements for temporary employment in New York...
Irreparable damage
Assessment of irreparable damage in relation to non-selection decisions: The applicant was not the only recommended candidate and, therefore, it could not be concluded that he would have been selected for the litigious post. Accordingly, he failed to show that the implementation of the contested decision would cause him irreparable damage.
The Respondent is in breach of the first order for suspension of action (UNDT/2012/029) – merely providing a different reason for the non-renewal does not obviate the need to abide by the original order.
The UNDT found that the Applicant had previously resigned from a temporary appointment and was reemployed on the understanding given to her by MINUSTAH that the period of 364 days, following which she may have to take a break in service, would start running on the date of her new temporary appointment. The UNDT found that the conditions for a suspension of action were met and ordered suspension, during the pendency of the management evaluation, of the implementation of the decision. Outcome: The UNDT ordered suspension of action on the contested decision pending management evaluation.
The Applicant submitted that she has a legitimate expectation of renewal and that the decision not to renew her contract was motivated by extraneous considerations. The Respondent submitted that the decision was taken as a result of UNMIT’s downsizing in view of its eventual closure. The UNDT found that the requirement of urgency was satisfied. The UNDT found that the requirement of prima facie unlawfulness was also satisfied as the reason provided by the Respondent in support of the contested decision appeared to be unsupported by the facts and the documents in this case. The UNDT also found...
In the absence of a decision to abolish the post, there can be no suspension of such decision. The Tribunal finds the Applicant has failed to articulate that the implementation of the contested decision would cause him any harm that could not be compensated by an appropriate award of damages in the event of his success in the substantive case. The application for suspension of action would therefore fail on this ground alone. There was not a single averment regarding the prima facie unlawfulness of the alleged decision to abolish the post other than generalisations made regarding an attempted...