Opinion of the Advocate General — ECLI:EU:C:1998:361
Date: 1998-07-14
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases;Appeal - successful

Summary of the Judgmen t 
1. Officials — Actions — Prior complaint through administrative channels — Subject-matter — 
Correspondence between complaint and action 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
2. Officials — Decision having an adverse effect — Obligation to state reasons — Purpose — 
Scope — Decision finding that an official's absence is irregular, following a medical examina­
tion — Medical confidentiality 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.) 
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SUMMARY — CASE C-316/97 P 
1. Although a complaint through adminis­
trative channels is an indispensable pre­
liminary to bringing an action against an 
act adversely affecting a person to whom 
the Staff Regulations apply, it is not the 
function of that complaint to bind strictly 
and absolutely the judicial stage of the 
proceedings, provided that the claims sub­
mitted at the latter stage change neither 
the cause nor the object of the complaint. 
That applies to an action for the annul­
ment of the decisions which gave rise to 
the complaint, in which the pleas in law 
relied on in support of the claim for annul­
ment are closely linked to the grounds of 
challenge in the complaint. 
2. The purpose of the statement of the rea­
sons on which a decision adversely affecting 
an official is based, required by the second 
paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regu­
lations, is to enable the Community judi­
cature to review the legality of the deci­
sion and to provide the person concerned 
with details sufficient to allow him to 
ascertain whether or not the decision is 
well founded. The requirement of a state­
ment of reasons must be assessed in the 
light of the circumstances of the case, in 
particular the measure at issue and the 
nature of the reasons relied on. 
Where the decision concerned concludes, 
following a medical examination, that an 
official's absence is irregular and refers 
expressly to the assessment of the medical 
officer to the effect that the official is fit to 
resume his duties on the day following his 
visit, and the official fails to comply, it is 
not necessary for the institution, on its 
own initiative, to attach to that decision, 
or to reproduce in the statement of rea­
sons for it, the medical assessments made 
by the medical officer after his visit to the 
official's home. Since such assessments may 
be a matter of medical secrecy or be cov­
ered by other requirements of confidenti­
ality, it is incumbent on the person con­
cerned himself or his attending medical 
practitioner, if appropriate, to ask the insti­
tution to notify the medical officer's med­
ical assessments to him. 
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