CELEX: 62005FJ0130
Public service
Officials
New and material fact

Officials – Actions – Prior administrative complaint – Time-limits
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)
An official cannot, by submitting a request to the appointing authority under Article 90(1) of the Staff Regulations, revive
for himself the possibility of lodging a complaint and an appeal against a decision which has become definitive upon the expiry
of the time-limits laid down by the Staff Regulations, unless a new and substantive fact has occurred prior to the submission
of the request.
In that respect, the fact that an official’s staff report was drawn up after the disputed promotion procedure does not constitute
a new and substantive fact enabling him to contest a decision not to promote him, which has become definitive, as long as
he was aware that the report had not been drawn up and that he could not therefore be taken into account in that promotion
procedure. Since a decision not to promote an official can be disputed even in the absence of a staff report, there is nothing
to stop the official in question from lodging a complaint against that decision on the ground that the failure to draw up
his staff report placed him at a disadvantage.
(see paras 52, 57-58, 60)
See:
231/84
Valentini
v
Commission
[1985] ECR 3027, para. 14
T-495/93
Carrer and Others
v
Court of Justice
[1994] ECR‑SC I‑A‑201 and II‑651, para. 20; T-138/99
Verheyden
v
Commission
[2000] ECR-SC I‑A‑219 and II‑1001, para. 43; T-70/98
Hilden
v
Commission
[2002] ECR-SC I‑A‑57 and II‑265, para. 39