62019TJ0213_RES
Case T‑213/19
AW
v
European Parliament
Judgment of the General Court (Seventh Chamber), 28 May 2020
(Civil service — Officials — Social security — Article 73 of the Staff Regulations — Common rules on the insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Article 16 — Statement of occupational disease — Article 22 — Medical Committee — Refusal to recognise the occupational nature of a disease — Irregularity of the opinion of the Medical Committee)
Actions brought by officials — Action against a decision rejecting a complaint — Admissibility — Obligation to rule on pleas directed against the decision rejecting the complaint — Pleas devoid of independent content or purely confirmatory decision — None
(Staff Regulations of Officials, Arts 90 and 91)
(see paragraphs 23, 24)
Officials — Social security — Insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Expert medical report — Discretion of the Medical Committee — Judicial review — Scope of powers
(Staff Regulations of Officials, Art. 73; Common rules on the insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 22)
(see paragraph 44)
Officials — Social security — Insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease — Establishing whether a disease results from an official’s occupation — Procedure — Handing over of all available documents liable to be of use to the Medical Committee — None — Irregularity of the opinion of the Medical Committee
(Staff Regulations of Officials, Art. 73; Common rules on the insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease, Art. 22(3))
(see paragraphs 45-59)
Résumé
By its judgment in AW v Parliament (T–213/19) of 28 May 2020, the General Court annulled the decisions of the European Parliament rejecting the requests for recognition of the occupational nature of certain diseases from which the applicant suffered, on the ground of the irregularity of the medical opinion issued by the Medical Committee.
The applicant, an official of the European Parliament, had submitted, pursuant to Articles 3 and 16 of the Common rules on the insurance against the risk of accident and of occupational disease (‘the Insurance rules’), (
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) several requests for recognition of the occupational nature of the diseases from which he suffered. Following notification by the Appointing Authority of two draft decisions refusing to recognise the occupational nature of the diseases in question, accompanied by the conclusions of Dr A, a doctor designated by that authority, the applicant requested the matter to be referred to the Medical Committee to give its opinion on those draft decisions. The applicant designated Dr B to represent him and submitted that doctor’s reports setting out the contested medical questions to the Appointing Authority. The Medical Committee, composed of Dr B, Dr A and a third doctor, Dr C, met on 10 April 2018. On 12 April 2018, Dr B sent to Dr C documents initially submitted by the applicant in support of his requests for recognition of the occupational nature of the diseases in question, which had not been disclosed to the Medical Committee. By email of 16 May 2018, Dr C mentioned to Dr B that he had not taken account of those documents, in accordance with the instructions given by the European Parliament. Following the medical reports drawn up by the Medical Committee, the Appointing Authority rejected the requests for recognition of the occupational nature of the diseases in question (‘the contested decisions’). The complaint submitted by the official against the contested decisions on the basis of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union was also rejected by the Appointing Authority.
In support of his action for annulment, the applicant argued that the Medical Committee did not have before it a complete file containing all the documents that he had submitted since the opening of the procedures for recognition of the occupational nature of the diseases in question. Therefore, according to the applicant, that committee did not have access to all the available documents liable to be of use in its assessments, in breach of Article 22(3) of the Insurance rules.
The Court first pointed out that it follows from Article 22(3) of the Insurance rules that, for a Medical Committee validly to issue a medical opinion, it must be in a position to have notice of all the available documents liable to be of use in its assessments. However, in the present case, it was common ground that the Parliament did not disclose to the Medical Committee certain documents initially submitted by the applicant, including medical reports which concluded that the diseases in question were occupational in nature. According to the explanations provided in that regard by the Parliament, it had disregarded those documents after finding that some of them were identical to those already in its possession, others were unrelated to the medical questions submitted, and, finally, others contained similar information, that is to say, without being identical, they repeated the same information and conclusions it already had in its possession.
More specifically, in respect of the non-transmission of that last category of documents, the Court then found that the Parliament had made a medical assessment of the documents, which exceeded the scope of its powers. In fact, when the insured person or those entitled under him or her ask the Medical Committee to give its opinion, the Parliament’s sole task is to define the terms of reference provided to the committee. Those terms of reference must refer to the committee the medical questions raised in the medical reports that the insured person or those entitled under him or her considered necessary to disclose to the doctor or doctors designated by the institution for the purposes of applying the provisions of the Insurance rules. It was therefore up to the insured person alone or those entitled under him or her to assess the relevance of the medical reports removed from the file.
By deciding on medical matters with a view to drawing up the file submitted to the Medical Committee, the Parliament had consequently exceeded the scope of its powers and undermined the validity of the work of the Medical Committee. In those circumstances, the Medical Committee could not be regarded as having been able to examine all the available documents liable to be of use in its assessments. Since the Medical Committee carried out its task under improper circumstances, the reports which it had sent to the Appointing Authority at the end of its work were flawed.
Since the documents on which the Parliament had made a medical assessment were clearly linked to the applicant’s illnesses, the Court found that it was not ruled out that, if the Medical Committee had been able to examine those documents and, where appropriate, take them into account, its conclusions might have been different.
Since the contested decisions had been adopted on the basis of irregular reports of the Medical Committee, they were vitiated by a procedural defect such as to justify their annulment.
(
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)	Common rules on the insurance of officials of the European Communities against the risk of accident and of occupational disease drawn up by agreement between the institutions of the European Union pursuant to Article 73 Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union.