Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2003:115
Date: 2003-04-10
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Prior administrative complaint;Time-limits
Procedure: Staff cases - inadmissible

SUMMARY - CASE T-186/01 
Summary 
1. Officials - Appeals - Prior administrative complaint - Time-limit - Matter of 
public policy - Expiry - Excusable error - Meaning 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
2. Officials - Appeals - Prior administrative complaint - Same subject-matter and 
legal basis - Pleas put forward in the action not covering all the claims of the 
complaint - Inadmissible 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
1. The time-limits prescribed in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations for 
lodging complaints and bringing proceedings are intended to ensure the clarity and 
certainty of legal situations and are a matter· of public policy, so that they cannot be 
left to the discretion of the parties or the Court. Any exceptions to or derogations 
from those time-limits must be interpreted restrictively. 
The concept of excusable error, in the context of time-limits for initiating 
proceedings, can concern only exceptional circumstances in which, in particular, the 
conduct of the institution concerned has been, either alone or to a decisive extent, 
such as to give rise to pardonable confusion in the mind of a party acting in good 
faith and exercising all the diligence required of a normally experienced person. 
That is not the case where the administration sends a letter to a complainant in 
which it apologises for the delay in examining his complaint and gives an assurance 
that it will be dealt with as soon as possible, without any attempt to dissuade the 
person concerned from appealing against the implied decision to reject the 
complaint. 
(see paras 48, 54-56) 
I-A - 132 
ROBERT v PARLIAMENT 
See: C-246/95 Coen [1997] ECR I-403, para 21; T-33/89 and T-74/89 Blackman v 
Parliament [1993] ECR II-249. para 34; T-514/93 Cobrecaf and Others v Commission 
[1995] ECR II-621, para 40; T-131/95 Progoulis v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-297 
and II-907, para 36; T-142/00 Van Huffel v Commission [2001] ECR-SC I-A-219 and 
II-1011, para 28 
2. The rule of consistency between the complaint and the application initiating legal 
proceedings requires that, if it is to be admissible, any plea put forward before the 
Court must have been raised already in the context of the pre-litigation procedure, 
to enable the appointing authority to know in sufficient detail the criticisms which 
the person concerned is making against the contested decision. 
(see para 64) 
See: T-496/93 Allo v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-127 and II-405, para 26 
I-A- 133