Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2007:27
Date: 2007-01-31
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Procedure for drawing up the staff report/appraisal;Discretion of the reporting officer
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

Summary 1. Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report – Obligation to state reasons (Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 2. Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report (Staff Regulations, Art. 43) 1. Where, in the reports procedure established by the Commission, the Joint Evaluation Committee identifies special circumstances capable of calling into question the validity or merits of the initial assessment by the assessor or the countersigning officer, the appeal assessor must issue a reasoned opinion containing arguments giving adequate consideration to those special circumstances, and he is not released from that obligation merely by making an implied reference to the initial statement of reasons in the career development report. Such a possibility would have the effect of rendering the entire procedure before the Joint Evaluation Committee redundant. (see paras 59, 61) 2. In view of the fact that assessors have a wide discretion when judging the work of persons whom they must assess, it is for the official applying for the annulment of his career development report to prove that there has been a manifest error of assessment. Such an error exists where the performance of a head of unit has been assessed with reference to targets assigned on the basis of a staff increase that was not ultimately confirmed, where those targets were not revised downwards once it became clear that the recruitments announced would not take place. (see paras 83, 90, 92) See: T-43/04 Fardoom and Reinard v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑329 and II‑1465, para. 79