Judgment — ECLI:EU:T:2003:29
Date: 2003-02-11
Based on: Merger Treaty (1965)
Subject matter: Staff regulations and employment conditions - EC
Concepts: Promotion
Procedure: Staff cases - successful

SUMMARY - CASE T-30/02 
Summary 
1. Officials - Promotion - Change from one system to another - Temporary 
derogation from the strict application of permanent rules and principles on the 
subject - Whether permissible - Limits 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45(1), first para.) 
2. Officials - Promotion - Adoption of a new promotion system - Limit on 
account to be taken of merits recognised previously - Whether permissible 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45(1), first para.) 
3. Officials - Promotion - Adoption of a new promotion system - Transition from 
the old system to the new — Not possible for any official promoted during the 
transitional period to carry over merits recognised prior to his promotion, 
regardless of its date - Equal treatment - Principle of entitlement to career 
prospects - Breach - Illegality 
(Staff Regulations, Art. 45(1), first para.) 
1. The constraints inherent in changing from one method of management to another, 
in respect of officials' careers, may require the administration to depart temporarily, 
and within certain limits, from the strict application of the permanent rules and 
principles that normally apply to the situations at issue. However, such departures 
must be justified by an overriding requirement connected with the transition, and 
their duration and scope should not exceed what is necessary to ensure an orderly 
move from one system to the other. 
(see para. 51) 
I-A - 42 
LEONHARDT v PARLIAMENT 
2. The purpose of changing the existing method of promoting officials is, ex 
hypothesi, to rectify certain problems resulting from the application of the earlier 
rules. It is therefore inherent in such a reform process, the need for which the 
administration has wide discretion to assess, that the merits of officials should begin 
to be evaluated on a new basis from a given date. The administration cannot be 
expected, under the new system, to take account, in exactly the same way, of all the 
marks awarded to officials under the old system, since that would almost inevitably 
negate the effectiveness of the reform of the promotion system, and staff are, in any 
event, not entitled to expect the existing rules to remain unchanged. Limiting the 
account taken of earlier marks, with the result that the theoretical tally produced by 
converting those marks into the promotion points introduced by the new system does 
not allow the officials concerned to achieve more than a move to the next grade, 
may not be regarded as exceeding the powers which the appointing authority has to 
introduce, on a transitional basis, changes to the rules governing the promotion of 
officials. It merely establishes a ceiling for the account to be taken of merits 
recognised previously. 
Restricting the number of promotion points of officials undergoing the change of 
system to the level corresponding to the reference threshold for a change of grade, 
and the resulting restart from zero, at the higher grade, for staff who had reached 
that threshold when the new system came into force, may thus be regarded as 
justified by the requirements inherent in a change of rules. 
(see paras 55-57) 
See: 62/75 de Wind v Commission [1976] ECR 1167, para. 17; T-557/93 Rasmussen v 
Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-195 and II-603. para. 20 
I-A - 43 
SUMMARY - CASE T-30/02 
3. While it is inherent in a change of rules that new situations are created on a given 
date as a result of adapting the account taken of situations constituted earlier, it is, 
at the very least, necessary to re-establish equal treatment, with all that that implies, 
from the time when the new system comes into force. Differences of treatment in 
the appraisal under the new rules of situations constituted before those rules came 
into force cannot be justified in terms of the assimilation of past performance. 
The provision in the rules on the implementation of a new promotion system for 
Parliament officials which requires the promotion points of a promoted official to 
be reset at zero for a transitional period, regardless of when the official was 
promoted, constitutes an infringement of the principle of equal treatment between 
officials which is not justified by the requirements of the transition from one 
promotion system to another. It is also contrary to the principle that officials should 
have reasonable career prospects, which, like the principle of equal treatment, is 
expressed in the procedure for consideration of the comparative merits of candidates 
eligible for promotion provided for in the first paragraph of Article 45(1) of the 
Staff Regulations. 
While it is always open to the appointing authority, in the case of two officials in 
the same situation in terms of promotion points, to prefer to grant promotion to one 
rather than the other, on the basis of a general assessment of their respective 
qualities, that preference may not, however, prevent the official whose promotion 
is deferred from acquiring promotion points for a year for which the official 
promoted immediately will be able to acquire such points with a view to further 
promotion. That is precisely the outcome that follows from the rule, which 
derogates from the principle that promotion points acquired over and above the 
threshold for eligibility for promotion should be retained, that the tally of promotion 
points of an official promoted at any time during the transitional period must be 
reset at zero. 
(see paras 59, 63-64, 67) 
I-A - 44 
LEONHARDT v PARLIAMENT 
See: 20/83 and 21/83 Vlaclios v Court of Justice [1984] ECR 4149. para. 19: T-280/94 
Lopes v Court of Justice [1996) ECR-SC I-A-77 and II-239. para. 138 
I-A - 45