UNDT/2015/081

UNDT/2015/081, Toure

UNAT Held or UNDT Pronouncements

Moral damages – As held in Asariotis 2013-UNAT-309, damages for a moral injury may arise from a breach of the employee’s substantive entitlements arising from his or her contract of employment and/or from a breach of the procedural due process entitlements therein guaranteed (be they specifically designated in the Staff Regulations and Rules or arising from the principles of natural justice). Where the breach is of a fundamental nature, the breach may of itself give rise to an award of moral damages, not in any punitive sense for the fact of the breach having occurred, but rather by virtue of the harm to the employee.

Decision Contested or Judgment Appealed

The Applicant is a former staff member of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). In her Application dated 26 June 2013, she is contesting the decision dated 14 December 2012 not to renew her appointment based upon the abolition of her post and non-reassignment. The Tribunal found that the Executive Secretary of ECA had acted ultra vires when he unilaterally abolished the Applicant’s post in December 2012. The Executive Secretary had neither the authority nor the discretion to abolish Regional Advisor RPTC-funded posts which were set up to implement already approved programmes for the 2012-2013 biennium without seeking and obtaining approval as provided for in regulation 6.2. The approvals obtained by the Executive Secretary from the COM in March 2013 and later from the General Assembly for a refocusing and re-prioritizing of the ECA programmes only related to the ECA’s previously approved 2014-2015 biennium, not the 2012-2013 biennium that had only nine more months to come to its end.

Legal Principle(s)

N/A

Outcome

Judgment entered for Applicant in full or in part

Outcome Extra Text

Only financial compensation.

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The judgment summaries were generally prepared in English. They were translated into French and are being reviewed for accuracy of the translation.

Full Judgment

Applicants/ Appellants

Toure

Entity

ECA

Case Number(s)

UNDT/NBI/2013/36

Tribunal

UNDT

Registry Location :

Nairobi