Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:2001:628
Date: 2001-11-22
Language of the case: French
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases;Appeal - successful

Summary of the Judgment 
1. Procedure — Procedure before the Court of First Instance — Possibility for a single 
Judge to hear and determine a case — Conditions — Cases raising issues as to the 
legality of an act of general application excluded — Definition of cases raising 
questions concerning the legality of an act of general application — Internal rules of 
an institution concerning the criteria applicable to appointment in grade and 
classification in step on recruitment — Included 
(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 11(1), first para., and 14(2)(1) 
and (2)(a), and (3» 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-171/00 P 
2. Officials •—• Recruitment — Appointment in grade and classification in step — 
Account taken of professional experience — Date taken as the dies ad quern for the 
calculation of the length of professional experience — Actual date of taking up 
duties — Rule for calculating length of professional experience applicable to members 
of the temporary staff different from that applicable to officials —· Breach of the 
principle of equal treatment 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 3 and 31) 
1. Under the first pa ragraph of 
Article 11(1) of the Rules of Procedure 
of the Court of First Instance, cases 
before the Court are, in principle, 
heard by Chambers. It is by way of 
an exception that Article 14(2)(1) of 
the Rules of Procedure of the Court of 
First Instance provides that some spe­
cific categories of case, among them 
Community staff cases, may be heard 
and determined by the Judge-Rappor­
teur sitting as a single Judge where, 
having regard to the lack of difficulty 
of the questions of law or fact raised, to 
the limited importance of those cases 
and to the absence of other special 
circumstances, they are suitable for 
being so heard and determined. 
However, Article 14(2)(2)(a) of the 
Rules of Procedure of the Court of 
First Instance provides that it is not 
possible to delegate to a single Judge 
cases which raise issues as to the legal­
ity of an act of general application. 
That provision is an exception to the 
first exception and requires a return to 
the original principle. It cannot there­
fore be interpreted restrictively. 
An act has general application, within 
the meaning of that provision, if it 
applies to an objectively determined 
situation and entails legal effects for 
categories of persons regarded gen­
erally and in the abstract. 
A case raises a question relating to the 
legality of an act of general application 
and cannot therefore be delegated to a 
single Judge, to say the least, when an 
action for annulment is brought against 
such an act or when a plea of illegality 
is raised against it which is reasoned 
and substantiated by evidence. In that 
situation, a case may not be delegated 
to a single Judge. A case also raises an 
issue as to the legality of an act of 
general application when such a ques­
tion is raised indirectly. In that case, 
the single Judge must, in accordance 
with Article 14(3) of the Rules of 
Procedure of the Court of First 
Instance, find that the conditions jus­
tifying delegation of the case are no 
longer satisfied and refer the case back 
to the Chamber. 
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LIBÉROS v COMMISSION 
Accordingly, the decision of an institu­
tion laying down the criteria applicable 
to classification in grade and step on 
recruitment, which applies to an objec­
tively determined situation and entails 
legal effects for categories of persons 
regarded generally and in the abstract, 
must therefore be considered to be an 
'act of general application' within the 
meaning of Article 14(2)(2)(a) of the 
Rules of Procedure of the Court of First 
Instance. Although internal measures 
adopted by the administration may not 
be regarded as rules of law which the 
administration is always bound to 
observe, they nevertheless form rules 
of practice from which the adminis­
tration may not depart without giving 
the reasons which led it to do so, which 
must be compatible with the principle 
of equal treatment. Such measures 
constitute an act of general application 
and the officials and other staff con­
cerned may invoke their illegality in 
support of an action against the indi­
vidual decisions taken on the basis of 
the measures. 
(see paras 25-27, 31-33, 35-36) 
2. Under Article 3 of the Staff Regu­
lations, the date on which the appoint­
ment of an official takes effect is not to 
be prior to the date on which he takes 
up his duties. Since an official may 
obtain training or exercise professional 
activities up to the day prior to the date 
on which he takes up his post, it is the 
latter date which should be taken as the 
dies ad quem for calculating the length 
of professional experience which may 
be taken into consideration for classifi­
cation in grade. 
Article 31 of the Staff Regulations 
should therefore be interpreted as 
meaning that, in so far as professional 
experience is taken into consideration 
for the purpose of classification in 
grade, the proper last date taken for 
calculating the length of professional 
experience must be the day preceding 
the day (dies ad quern) on which the 
official takes up his post. 
It follows that a decision of a Commu­
nity institution on the criteria appli­
cable to appointment in grade and 
classification in step on recruitment, 
inasmuch as it establishes a dies ad 
quern corresponding to the date of the 
offer of employment, cannot be appli­
cable to the recruitment of officials. 
The same conclusion applies in respect 
of recruitment of members of the 
temporary staff, inasmuch as the insti­
tution has said that that decision is to 
apply by analogy. Such a decision, in so 
far as it takes as the dies ad quern the 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-171/00 P 
date on which the offer of employment 
is made and not that on which the 
person concerned takes up his post, 
provides, for members of the tempor­
ary staff and without objective reason, 
a rule for calculating the length of 
professional experience taken into 
account which differs from that appli­
cable to officials under Article 31 of the 
Staff Regulations. By so doing, it 
infringes the principle of equal treat­
ment. 
(see paras 46-49, 54) 
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