Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:126
Date: 2001-05-02
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Second Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Obligations of the Selection Board;Effects of a judgment annulling a measure;Organisation and content of tests;Specific cases
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-167/99 AND T-174/99 
to bear its own costs, including those relating to 
proceedings on the application for interim measures. 
Summary 
1. Officials - Actions - Judgment annulling a decision - Effects - Annulment of 
the decision of the selection board in an open competition excluding a candidate 
from the tests subsequent to the preselection tests - Duties of the selection board 
and the appointing authority 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 91) 
2. Officials - Competitions - Competition based on qualifications and tests -
Content of the tests - Irregularities or errors occurring during the conduct of an 
open competition - Discretion of the selection board - Judicial review - Limits 
3. Officials - Recruitment - Competition based on qualifications and tests -
Procedures - Not possible for the person concerned to rely on the method of 
organisation of another competition - Conditions 
(Staff Regulations, Annex III, Art. 5) 
4. Officials - Competitions - Selection board - Exclusion from the tests 
subsequent to the preselection tests - Obligation to state grounds - Scope -
Observance of the secrecy of the board's proceedings 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, Annex III, Art. 6) 
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GIULIETTI AND OTHERS v COMMISSION 
1. Where, in an open competition organised for the purpose of constituting a reserve 
for future recruitment, the selection board's decision excluding a candidate from the 
tests subsequent to the pre-selection tests is annulled, the rights of the person 
concerned who has failed that test will be adequately protected if the selection board 
and the appointing authority reconsider their decisions and seek a just solution in his 
case, without its being necessary to call in question the entire results of the 
competition or to annul the appointments made as a result thereof. In such a 
situation, it is necessary to reconcile the interests of the candidates placed at a 
disadvantage by an irregularity committed in the course of the competition and those 
of the other candidates. In that regard, the Court is required to take account, not 
only of the need to restore the rights of the candidates who have been adversely 
affected, but also of the legitimate expectations of the successful candidates. 
(see paras 56-57) 
See: C-242/90 P Commission v Albani and Others [1993] ECR I-3839, paras 13, 14, 16 
and 17 
2. The selection board in a competition has a wide discretion with regard to the 
procedures for and detailed content of the tests held in connection with the 
competition. The Community judicature may therefore review the procedures for the 
tests only in so far as is necessary to ensure equal treatment of the candidates and 
objectivity in the choice made between them. That wide discretion must, subject to 
the same limits, be afforded to the selection board in a competition where it is 
confronted with irregularities or errors which have occurred in the course of an 
open competition involving a large number of candidates and which cannot, under 
the principles of proportionality and sound administration, be rectified by a 
repetition of the tests in the competition. 
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SUMMARY — JOINED CASES T-167/99 AND T-174/99 
By virtue of those same principles, the selection board in a competition also has a 
wide discretion with regard to the question whether it is confronted with 
irregularities or errors which have occurred in the course of an open competition 
involving a large number of candidates, in particular as regards the formulation of 
the multiple-choice questions. Consequently, the Community judicature must also 
confine itself to a restricted review as regards the intelligibility of those questions. 
(see paras 58, 61) 
See: T-153/95 Kaps v Court of Justice [1996] ECR-SC I-A-233 and II-663, para. 37 
3. A candidate for a competition cannot rely to any purpose, in support of his claim 
that the selection board's decision should be annulled, upon conditions of admission 
to another competition organised by the same institution according to different 
procedures and in pursuit of a different aim. The same must apply, more generally, 
to the method of organising a competition aimed at recruiting candidates possessing 
skills in different fields. That is a fortiori the case where different competitions were 
organised simultaneously and the applicants therefore had the opportunity to choose, 
from among all the available competitions, the one in which they wished to take 
part. 
(see para. 75) 
See: 143/82 Lipman v Commission [1983] ECR 1301, para. 10 
4. In the context of the pre-selection tests for an open competition organised for the 
purpose of constituting a reserve for future recruitment, the selection board's 
proceedings involve tasks that are primarily comparative in character and are 
accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in such proceedings. The criteria for 
marking adopted by the selection board, both prior to the tests and in the course of 
determining whether any irregularities or errors may have been committed during 
the conduct of those tests, form an integral part of the comparative assessments 
which it makes of the candidates' respective merits. Those criteria are therefore 
covered by the secrecy of the proceedings in the same way as the selection board's 
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GIULIETTI AND OTHERS v COMMISSION 
assessments. Having regard to the secrecy which must surround such proceedings 
of a selection board, communication both of the marks obtained in the various tests 
and of the fact that certain questions have been cancelled, with the consequent 
redistribution among the remaining questions of the marks originally assigned to 
those questions, constitutes an adequate statement of the reasons on which the 
board's decisions are based, which is not prejudicial to the rights of the unsuccessful 
candidates, while enabling the Court of First Instance to carry out a judicial review 
appropriate for that type of dispute. 
(see para. 81) 
See: C-254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I-3423, paras 26 to 28 
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