Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2003:340
Date: 2003-12-11
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Promotion;Act adversely affecting the official;Principle of equality and non-discrimination
Procedure: Staff cases - unfounded

SUMMARY - CASE T-323/02 
Summary 
1. Officials — Actions - Act adversely affecting an official - Concept - Award 
of promotion points - Inclusion 
(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91) 
2. Officials - Promotion — Adoption of a new promotion system - Transitional 
system - Account taken of officials ' merits - Discretion of the administration -
Judicial review - Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45) 
3. Community law - Principles — Equal treatment - Discrimination - Meaning 
1. In the rules on promotion adopted by the Court of Justice, which are based on 
consideration of aggregated merits represented by promotion points accumulated 
year after year, the implications of the award of promotion points are not limited 
to one particular promotion round. 
Accordingly, although it forms part of the promotion procedure and does not 
entirely predetermine the position that the appointing authority will adopt on the 
possible promotion of the official concerned in a particular promotion round, that 
award must, like the staff report, be regarded as an independent act producing 
binding legal consequences likely to affect the official's interests by significantly 
changing his legal situation, against which action may be brought under the Staff 
Regulations. 
(see paras 54-55) 
I-A - 326 
BRETON v COURT OF JUSTICE 
2. A Community institution which is required, by virtue of an internal decision 
introducing a transitional promotion system, to take account of the merits 
demonstrated by an official during a period not covered by the staff reports, when 
he was first a member of the temporary staff and then a probationary official, has 
a wide discretion for that purpose. The review by the Community judicature is 
therefore confined to determining whether, having regard to the various 
considerations which may have influenced the administration in making its 
assessment, it has remained within reasonable bounds and has not used its power in 
a manifestly incorrect way. 
(see para. 98) 
See: T-262/94 Baiwir v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I-A-257 and II-739, para. 66; 
T-221 /96 Manzo-Tafaro v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I-A-115 and II-307, para. 16; 
T-163/01 Perez Escanilla v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I-A-131 and II-717, para. 28 
3. The principle of non-discrimination or equality of treatment, which constitutes 
a general principle of Community law, prohibits comparable situations from being 
treated differently or different situations from being treated in the same way, unless 
such difference in treatment is objectively justified. 
(see para. 99) 
See: 91/85 Clemen and Others v Commission [1986] ECR 2853, para. 10; C-174/89 
Hoche [1990] ECR I-2681, para. 25, and the case-law cited 
I-A - 327