Order — ECLI:EU:F:2016:77
Date: 2016-04-12
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Staff cases - inadmissible

Summary 1. Actions brought by officials — Act adversely affecting an official — Decision adopted after reconsideration of a previous decision — Decision adopted by a competition selection board after reviewing the file of a candidate not admitted to the competition (Staff Regulations, Arts 90(2) and 91(1)) 2. Officials — Competitions — Competition based on qualifications and tests — Conditions for admission — Fixing by the competition notice — Selection board’s assessment of candidates’ professional experience — Judicial review — Limits (Staff Regulations, Annex III, Arts 2 and 5) 1. When a candidate whose request to be admitted to a competition has been rejected seeks reconsideration of that decision on the basis of a precise provision binding on the administration, it is the decision taken by the selection board after reconsideration which must be regarded as the act adversely affecting him within the meaning of Article 90(2) or, as the case may be, Article 91(1) of the Staff Regulations. An action is manifestly inadmissible in so far as it is directed against the original decision. (see paras 21, 33) See: Judgments of 24 September 2009 in Brown v Commission, F‑37/05, EU:F:2009:121, para. 28, and 4 February 2010 in Wiame v Commission, F‑15/08, EU:F:2010:7, para. 20 2. It is for the selection board in a competition to assess in each case whether the professional experience stated by each candidate corresponds to the level required by the notice of competition. The selection board enjoys broad discretion in that regard, under the provisions of the Staff Regulations concerning competition procedures, when assessing the nature and duration of the previous experience of candidates and its relevance to the post to be filled. In its review of legality, the Civil Service Tribunal must therefore confine itself to ascertaining whether the selection board’s exercise of that discretion was free from manifest errors. In the context of that review, the EU Court must take account of the fact that it is for the candidate in a competition to provide the selection board with all the information and documents which he regards as necessary for the purposes of examining his application in order to enable the selection board to determine whether he fulfils the conditions laid down by the competition notice, all the more so if he has been expressly and formally requested to do so. The selection board, when giving its decision on the admission of candidates to a competition, is therefore entitled to limit its examination to the application forms and the documents annexed thereto. Furthermore, in view of the broad discretion granted to the selection board, in order to establish that it committed a manifest error in assessing the facts such as to justify the annulment of the decision taken, the evidence, which it is for the applicant to adduce, must be sufficient to make the findings of the selection board in question implausible. (see paras 35-38) See: Judgment of 12 July 1989 in Belardinelli and Others v Court of Justice, 225/87, EU:C:1989:309, paras 13 and 14 Judgments of 12 December 1996 in AIUFFASS and AKT v Commission, T‑380/94, EU:T:1996:195, para. 59; 13 March 2002 in Martínez Alarcón v Commission, T‑357/00, T‑361/00, T‑363/00 and T‑364/00, EU:T:2002:66, para. 76; 25 March 2004 in Petrich v Commission, T‑145/02, EU:T:2004:91, para. 37, and 12 February 2008 in BUPA and Others v Commission, T‑289/03, EU:T:2008:29, para. 221 Judgments of 25 November 2008 in Iordanova v Commission, F‑53/07, EU:F:2008:148, para. 34 and the case-law cited therein, and 24 April 2013 in Demeneix v Commission, F‑96/12, EU:F:2013:52, paras 42 to 45 and the case-law cited therein