Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2018:276
Date: 2018-05-17
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Appeals Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Appeal - unfounded;Staff cases;Action for damages;Appeal - successful

Summary — Judgment of the General Court (Appeal Chamber), 17 May 2018 1. Actions brought by officials — Judgment annulling a measure — Scope — Absolute authority of res judicata — Scope — Consideration of the grounds for the operative part (Art. 263 TFEU) 2. Appeal — Grounds — Inadequate statement of reasons — Recourse by the Civil Service Tribunal to implicit reasoning — Lawfulness — Conditions (Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 36 and Annex I, Art. 7(1)) 3. EU law — Principles — Duty to act within a reasonable time — Infringement in an administrative procedure — Passage of time likely to affect the content of a decision — Consequences in the context of medical cover deferment under Article 32 of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants (Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Art. 41(1); Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Communities, Art. 32) 1. See the text of the decision. (see paras 29-31, 33, 35, 39) 2. See the text of the decision. (see paras 50-52) 3. Compliance with the reasonable time requirement in the conduct of administrative procedures constitutes a general principle of EU law which is enforced by the European Union Courts and is, moreover, laid down as a component of the right to good administration by Article 41(1) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. However, infringement of the reasonable time principle does not, as a general rule, justify the annulment of a decision taken at the culmination of an administrative procedure. It is only where the passing of an excessive period is likely to have an effect on the actual substance of the decision adopted at the end of the administrative procedure that non-compliance with the reasonable time principle affects the validity of the administrative procedure. Thus, the Civil Service Tribunal erred in law in finding that the decision to make the appointment of a temporary staff member subject to the deferment of medical cover with retroactive effect from the date of his entering the service had, in effect, been converted into a decision to exclude the person concerned, with immediate effect, from receiving invalidity benefits in respect of invalidity that had already occurred. The sole fact that the decision to make the appointment subject to the deferment of medical cover was made after the contract had ended and after the Invalidity Committee had made its findings does not in itself establish that there was undue delay that affected the substance of that decision. (see paras 45, 46, 56, 59)