Judgment — ECLI:EU:F:2016:160
Date: 2016-07-20
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Third Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

Summary 1. Officials — Competitions — Competition based on qualifications and tests — Assessment of the candidates’ merits — Review of applications — Obligations of the selection board 2. Officials — Competitions — Competition based on qualifications and tests — Conditions for admission — Fixing by the competition notice — Introduction, by the selection board, of conditions not appearing in the competition notice — Not permissible (Staff Regulations, Annex III, Art. 5) 1. The competition selection board is required to ascertain whether the candidates possess the knowledge and the professional experience necessary to perform the duties of the post advertised in the relevant notice of competition. It is also required to make a comparative examination of the candidates’ knowledge and abilities so as to retain those most suited to the duties to be carried out. In this context, the selection board in a competition must ensure that its assessments of all the candidates examined are made under conditions of equality and objectivity and it is important that the marking criteria should be uniform and applied in a consistent manner to all candidates. When a selection board carries out a review of applications it must do so with the required diligence and with particular care. (see paras 35-37) See: Judgment of 28 February 1989 in Basch and Others v Commission, 100/87, 146/87 and 153/87, EU:C:1989:97, para. 16 Judgment of 17 January 2001 in Gerochristos v Commission, T‑189/99, EU:T:2001:12, para. 19 Judgments of 24 April 2013 in BX v Commission, F‑88/11, EU:F:2013:51, para. 39, and of 22 September 2015 in Gioria v Commission, F‑82/14, EU:F:2015:108, para. 50 2. Notwithstanding its discretionary power with regard to the testing conditions and content of tests of a competition, the selection board is bound by the wording and, in particular, the admission conditions of the notice of competition. The basic function of a notice of competition, according to the Staff Regulations, is to give those interested the most accurate information possible about the conditions of eligibility for the post, in order, inter alia, to enable them to judge whether they should apply for it. In the present case, it is clear from the notice of competition that, as regards the recruitment of administrators in the area of European competition law, the selection board is required to conduct, on the basis of the statements made in the context of the ‘Talent Screener Test’, a selection based on qualifications in order to identify the candidates whose qualifications (inter alia diplomas and professional experience) are most relevant in the light of the nature of the duties and the selection criteria, first by giving each of those criteria a weighting of between 1 and 3 according to the significance which the selection board gives to it and, secondly, by awarding a mark of between 0 to 4 to each of the answers given by the candidates, with that mark being related to the qualifications of the candidates. Thus, in order to identify, initially by means of the ‘Talent Screener Test’, the best candidates in terms of the needs of the service and the priorities of the Commission, the selection board was required first to assess, by giving it a weighting of 1 to 3, the significance of each of the selection criteria contained in the relevant annex to the notice of competition and, secondly, to award a mark of between 0 to 4 to each of the answers given by the candidates, on the basis of the relevance of their qualifications in the light of the selection criteria, which are in turn weighted according to their significance. By setting a maximum mark below 4 for the answers provided by the candidates in relation to four selection criteria out of the eight criteria listed in the notice of competition, the selection board, once again, established the level of significance of the criteria concerned by reducing it yet further below the framework laid down in that notice. The assessment made by the selection board of the answers in the context of the four questions in the ‘Talent Screener Test’ is based on an error of law which led the selection board to confuse the parameter relating to the significance allocated to each selection criterion with that concerning the qualifications of the candidates. Such an error, which concerns four of the eight questions in the ‘Talent Screener Test’, is such that it distorts the overall assessment made by the selection board of the qualifications and experience of the unsuccessful candidate, which is reflected in the final score which that candidate obtained in all the questions. There has therefore been an infringement of the notice of competition. (see paras 49, 50, 53, 54, 60-61) See: Order of 3 April 2001 in Zaur-Gora and Dubigh v Commission, T‑95/00 and T‑96/00, EU:T:2001:114, para. 47, and judgment of 25 March 2004 in Petrich v Commission, T‑145/02, EU:T:2004:91, para. 34 Judgments of 11 July 2006 in Tas v Commission, F‑12/05, EU:F:2006:68, para. 43; of 12 March 2009 in Hambura v Parliament, F‑4/08, EU:F:2009:25, para. 46; of 24 April 2013 in Demeneix v Commission, F‑96/12, EU:F:2013:52, para. 41, and of 26 March 2014 in CP v Parliament, F‑8/13, EU:F:2014:44, para. 91