Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2000:308
Date: 2000-12-14
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Sick leave
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY — CASE T-352/99 
Summary 
1. Officials — Sick leave — Proof of illness — Production of a medical certificate 
— Certificate drawn up a posteriori — Admissible in certain circumstances 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 59 and 90) 
2. Officials - Sick leave — Proof of illness — Obligation to produce a certificate 
for an absence of fewer than 4 days - None 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 59(1)) 
1. The administration may refuse to accept a medical certificate as valid and find 
that the absence of the official concerned is unauthorised only if it has subjected him 
beforehand to a medical examination, the findings of which take effect for 
administrative purposes only as from the date of that examination. The duty of the 
institutions to arrange a medical examination necessarily has as its corollary a duty 
on the part of the officials concerned, if Articles 59 and 60 of the Staff Regulations 
are not to be rendered ineffective, to submit to those institutions, as soon as 
possible, certificates showing with sufficient clarity and beyond all argument the 
incapacity which they may intend to invoke. 
In that context, a certificate forwarded on the second working day after the return 
to work of the official concerned and within 10 days after its production was 
required may justify sick leave. The fact that a certificate submitted in such a 
period is drawn up after the period of sick leave does not necessarily rule out its 
ability to justify the absence of the official concerned. 
(see paras 30-32) 
I-A - 302 
M v COMMISSION 
See: T-29/96 Schoch v Parliament [1997] ECR-SC I-A-219 and II-635, paras 38 and 39 
2. An official who has notified his institution of his incapacity because of illness or 
accident, in accordance with the second paragraph of Article 59(1) of the Staff 
Regulations, is required to produce a medical certificate only from his fourth day 
of absence, subject to the application of the third paragraph of that provision. 
An institution errs in law where it considers that it is entitled to require a medical 
certificate for a period of absence of fewer than 4 days, qualifies such an absence 
as irregular and deducts it from the official's annual leave entitlement on the ground 
that it is not justified by a medical certificate. 
(see paras 46-48) 
See: T-135/95 Z v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-519 and II-1413, paras 32 and 33; 
Schoch v Parliament, cited above, para. 38 
I-A - 303