Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2001:268
Date: 2001-11-15
Language of the case: French
Court formation: Fourth Chamber
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Administrative complaint;Mandatory nature;General;Access to internal competitions
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded;Staff cases - inadmissible

SUMMARY - CASE T-142/00 
Summary 
1. Officials - Actions - Prior administrative complaint - Time-limits -
Mandatory - Consideration by the Court of its own motion of the objection of 
inadmissibility of a plea on the ground that it is time-barred 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
2. Officials - Actions - Time-limits - Time-barred - Inadmissibility of a plea 
which could lead to the same result as an appeal brought against the act adversely 
affecting the official which has not been contested within the time-limit 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
3. Officials - Actions - Time-limits - Mandatory - Time-barred - Granting of 
leave to appeal out of time - Condition - New fact 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
4. Officials - Competitions - Internal competitions - Conditions of admission -
Membership of the staff covered by the Staff Regulations - Whether permissible 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 27, first para., and 29(1)) 
1. The time-limits laid down in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations for 
lodging complaints and appeals are intended to ensure legal certainty. They are 
therefore mandatory and cannot be left to the discretion of the parties or the Court. 
The fact that the defendant institution does not formally raise, at the stage of 
proceedings before the Court, an objection of inadmissibility on the ground that the 
appeal is time-barred does not dispense the Court from verifying whether those 
time-limits have been complied with. 
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VAN HUFFEL v COMMISSION 
That solution, which has been established in case-law in relation to the admissibility 
of an appeal, must be extended to the question of the admissibility of a plea. The 
principle underlying the rules governing the admissibility of an appeal and, in 
particular, those relating to the time-limits for lodging appeals, namely the principle 
of legal certainty, also justifies the application of an analogous solution as regards 
the admissibility of a plea. 
(see paras 28-29) 
See: T-35/96 Rasmussen v Commission [1997] ECR-SC I-A-61 and II-187, paras 29 
and 30; T-78/96 and T-170/96 W v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-239 and II-745, 
para. 66 
2. An act adversely affecting an official may not be challenged even in part after the 
expiry of the period for lodging an appeal. If such an act has not been contested 
within the time-limits laid down for that purpose, the person concerned cannot be 
allowed to circumvent those time-limits by putting forward, in other court 
proceedings, a plea which could lead to essentially the same result as an action for 
annulment brought against the act adversely affecting him. 
(see para. 35) 
3. The time-limits for lodging appeals are mandatory and derogations may be made 
only exceptionally, by reason of the occurrence of a substantial new fact. In order 
not to infringe the principle of legal certainty, even the subsequent discovery by an 
appellant of a pre-existing plea or factor cannot, in principle, be regarded as a new 
fact capable of justifying the granting of leave to appeal out of time. 
(see para. 36) 
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SUMMARY — CASE T-142/00 
See: T-253/97 Giegerich v Commission [1999] ECR-SC I-A-233 and II-1177, paras 27 
and 28, and the case-law cited therein 
4. The exercise of the discretion enjoyed by the institutions with respect to the 
holding of competitions, in particular as regards the determination of the conditions 
of admission, must be compatible with the mandatory provisions of the first 
paragraph of Article 27 and Article 29(1) of the Staff Regulations. The terms in 
which the first paragraph of Article 27 of the Staff Regulations defines the aim to 
be pursued by any recruitment and in which Article 29(1) of the Staff Regulations 
lays down the framework for the procedures for filling vacant posts are mandatory. 
That discretion must therefore always be exercised in the light of the requirements 
of the posts to be filled and, more generally, the interests of the service. 
In that regard, in the context of internal competitions, the condition of admission 
that candidates must be members of the staff covered by the Staff Regulations is 
justified in relation to Article 29 of the Staff Regulations and to the scheme of those 
regulations, as well as in relation to the interests of the service. 
The holding of an internal competition, as provided for by that article, is mentioned 
as one of the possible avenues of recruitment, together with promotion or internal 
transfer, as provided for by Article 29(1)(a) of the Staff Regulations, and transfer 
from another institution, as provided for by Article 29(1)(c) of the Staff Regulations. 
Promotion, internal transfer and inter-institutional transfer are all measures 
applicable to staff who are subject to the Staff Regulations. Consequently, the 
decisive criterion for interpreting the concept of staff within the institution, which 
determines participation in an internal competition, is not the particular situation of 
the candidates, but the relationship between the persons concerned and the 
institution. In order for the condition of admission to a competition, which requires 
candidates to be members of the staff within the institution, to be fulfilled, that 
relationship must be one governed by public law. It cannot be regarded as consistent 
with the scheme of the Staff Regulations for the term 'internal' used in the Staff 
I-A - 222 
VAN HUFFEL v COMMISSION 
Regulations to refer to persons other than those holding positions under the Staff 
Regulations. 
(see paras 52, 56, 61) 
See: Opinion of Advocate General Gand in Case 16/64 Rauch v Commission [1965] 
ECR 135; T-40/96 and T-55/96 de Kerros and Kolin-Bergé v Commission [1997] 
ECR-SC I-A-47 and II-135, para. 40; T-294/97 Carrasco Benitez v Commission [1998] 
ECR-SCI-A-601 and II-1819, para. 48; T-214/99 Carrasco Benitez v Commission [2000] 
ECR-SC I-A-257 and II-1169, para. 53 
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