5.

In my opinion the selection board should have started from the fact that the applicant indicated in her application form that she had worked as a secretary for more than nine years in the service of the Commission. The fact that she appeared none the less to have been classified in the basic post of secretary/shorthand typist for a much shorter period, and in the post of clerical officer for a period which coincided to a large extent with that referred to in the application form, should have led the selection board to ascertain from the administration the true state of affairs. In any case, after the applicant had complained in her letter of 22 August 1979 about the inaccurate assessment of her experience and requested that the error be rectified, the Commission should have appreciated the need to undertake the appropriate investigations. Had it done so, it would have found in Mrs Tiberghien's personal file ample documentation concerning the work she actually performed and the attempts made by her to obtain a classification which matched her duties; in particular it would have learned that as the preceding 16 July she had requested the “regular-ization” of her administrative position, that is, the formal recognition of the duties actually performed. And there is no reason for doubting that in reply to a request from the selection board the administration would have adopted the position which it later adopted, after the competition had already been completed, in its aforementioned letter of 21 November 1979 which was sent to the candidate finally acknowledging the duties she had performed in a secretarial capacity for over nine years. For its part the administration had a duty to supply the selection board in good time with all the necessary information for assessing the candidate. In similar cases this Court has held that omissions such as that here described vitiate a decision not to admit a candidate to a competition on the ground that they amount to an infringement of an essential procedural requirement. I would recall the judgment given on 9 June 1964 in Joined Cases 94 and 96/63 Bemusset [1964] ECR 297 in which the Court stated that application forms should be “evaluated only with considerable care in a manner requiring as objective a consideration as possible of the merits of the candidates” and that the appointing authority should supplement “its information by consulting the personal files of the candidates”. I would recall also the judgment given on 1 April 1971 in Case 76/69 Robe [1971] ECR 297 according to which failure on the part of the administration to send to the selection board documents relating to the qualifications required for admission of candidates to a competition “constitutes a procedural defect on which [the applicant] is entitled to rely” (see, in particular, paragraphs 5 to 8 of the decision). In substance, those decisions are inspired by the principle that when assessing applications from persons who have worked for Community institutions, selection boards must make use of all the assessment documents which the administration has in its possession and which may be found in the personal files (examination, of which is in any event indispensable) or elsewhere. Should a person's situation be found to be subject to doubt, as in the case of a discrepancy between work actually performed and the official classification of the post, the administration is bound to define its position and resolve those doubts as soon as may be, in order to enable the selection board to take a decision regarding the admission of the candidate on the basis of firm and clearly defined facts. From that it follows logically that any decision adopted without full cognizance of the relevant circumstances of each candidate is vitiated on the ground of infringement of an essential procedural requirement. In my opinion, those are the criteria on the basis of which the case at present under discussion should be resolved. The decision whereby the selection board refused to admit the applicant to the competition must be held to be vitiated on the ground of infringement of an essential procedural requirement, and therefore annulled.