Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2002:29
Date: 2002-02-07
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Fifth Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Obligations of the Selection Board;Organisation and content of tests;Selection Board;Assessment of candidates’ abilities
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY - CASE T-193/00 
Summary 
1. Officials — Competitions — Competition based on qualifications and tests — Test 
procedures and content - Discretion of the selection board - Judicial review -
Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Annex III) 
2. Officials — Competitions — Assessment of candidates' abilities — Discretion of 
the selection board — Judicial review — Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Annex III) 
3. Officials — Competitions — Selection Board — Composition — Sufficient stability 
to ensure the consistent marking of candidates - Deputy chairman acting as 
chairman of the selection board — Conditions 
(Staff Regulations, Annex III, Art. 3) 
4. Officials — Competitions — Duty of the Community institutions to all candidates 
to ensure that tests are conducted in an impartial and regular manner - Breach — 
Effect on the legality of the tests - Conditions — Burden of proof 
5. Officials - Competitions — Competition based on qualifications and tests — 
Content of the tests — Oral test — Knowledge of languages — Meaning 
1. The selection board enjoys wide discretion with regard to the procedure for and 
detailed content of the tests in a competition. The Community judicature may review 
the procedures for the conduct of a test only to the extent necessary to ensure that 
the candidates are treated equally and that the choice of candidates is objective. 
Similarly, the Community judicature may not review the detailed content of a test 
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FELIX v COMMISSION 
unless such content goes beyond the limits laid down in the competition notice or 
is not consonant with the purposes of the test or competition. 
(see para. 35) 
See:228/86 Goossens v Commission [1988] ECR 1819, para. 14; T-291/94 Pimley-Smith 
v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-209 and II-637, para. 26; T-153/95 Kaps v Court of 
Justice [1996] ECR-SC I-A-233 and II-663, para. 37 
2. The assessments made by a selection board in a competition when evaluating the 
abilities of candidates and the decisions whereby it finds that a candidate has failed 
a test are the expression of a value judgment. They fall within the wide discretion 
enjoyed by the selection board and are subject to review by the Community 
judicature only where there is a flagrant breach of the rules governing the selection 
board's work. 
(see para. 36) 
See: T-102/98 Papadeas v Committee of the Regions [1999] ECR-SC I-A-211 and 
II-1091. para. 54; T-95/98 Gogos v Commission [2000] ECR-SC I-A-51 and II-219, 
para. 36 
3. In order to be able to ensure that the selection board's assessments of all the 
candidates examined in the oral tests are made under conditions of equality and 
objectivity, it is important that the marking criteria should be uniform and applied 
in a consistent manner to those candidates. That presupposes inter alia that, as far 
as possible, the composition of the selection board remains stable. In particular, the 
deputy chairman may not act as chairman unless the chairman has resigned or it 
appears that, as a result of events beyond the control of the administration, the 
chairman is unable to sit. 
(see para. 37) 
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SUMMARY - CASE T-193/00 
See: T-44/91 Smets v Commission [1994] ECR-SC I-A-97 and II-319, para. 58; Gogos 
v Commission, cited above, para. 43 
4. Under the principles of sound administration and equal treatment, the Community 
institutions have a duty to all candidates in a competition to ensure that the tests are 
conducted in as impartial and regular a manner as possible. However, an 
irregularity which occurs during the course of the tests in a competition affects the 
legality of those tests only if it is of a substantive nature such as to distort the results 
of the tests. Where such an irregularity occurs, it is for the defendant institution to 
prove that it did not affect the results of the tests. 
(see para. 45) 
See: T-200/97 Jiménez v OHM [1999] ECR-SC I-A-19 and II-73, para. 55; T-159/98 
Torre and Others v Commission [2001] ECR-SC I-A-83 and II-395, paras 46 and 47 
5. The term 'knowledge of languages' contained in the description of the oral test 
in the competition must be construed as including all the languages mentioned by 
the candidates in their applications and not as a reference only to the knowledge of 
languages required as conditions of admission to the competition. 
(see para. 55) 
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