JUDGMENT OF THE COURT FOR FIRST INSTANCE (Single Judge)

17 January 2001

Case T-189/99

Ioannis Gerochristos

v

Commission of the European Communities

‛Competition COM/A/12/98 — Action for annulment — Pre-selection tests — Retroactive cancellation of certain multiple-choice questions — Principle of equal treatment of candidates — Obligation to provide a statement of reasons’

Full text in Greek II-53

Application for:

annulment, first, of the decision of 30 April 1999 of the selection board in competition COM/A/12/98 excluding the applicant from the tests subsequent to the pre-selection test and of the decision of that selection board of 21 June 1999 confirming that initial decision following a reexamination thereof and, second, of all subsequent steps taken and measures adopted in the said competition.

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

When a selection board in a competition is faced with a request for reconsideration of a decision excluding a candidate who has taken part in a competition, that selection board is required to carry out, with all the required diligence, a genuine reexamination of the decision which is the subject of that request. However, where such a request for reconsideration is made in the context of the pre-selection procedure in a general competition involving a large number of candidates, which has taken the form of a multiple-choice questionnaire, that requirement may legitimately consist merely of a check that the marks communicated to the excluded candidate do in fact correspond to those which he obtained. That is a fortiori the case where that candidate's request for reconsideration is made in very general terms without calling in question any particular aspect of the pre-selection tests in which he took part. (see para. 19) See: 100/87, 146/87 and 153/87 Basch and Others v Commission [1989] ECR 447, para. 16

The selection board in a competition has a wide discretion with regard to the detailed procedures for and content of the tests to be held in connection with the competition. The Community judicature may therefore review the detailed procedures for the tests only in so far as is necessary in order to ensure the equal treatment of the candidates and the objectivity of the selection made between them. The selection board must also enjoy that wide discretion, within the same limits, when it is faced with irregularities or errors which have occurred in the course of a general competition involving a large number of candidates and which cannot, under the principles of proportionality and sound administration, be rectified by a repetition of the tests in the competition. The argument that the retroactive cancellation of certain questions constitutes a breach of the principle of equal treatment since the time devoted to those questions differs from one candidate to another is based on a misconception of that principle. That argument relates, not to an irregularity in the conditions governing the competition which are imposed on the candidates, or to an inequality in the assessment made by the selection board of the various candidates, but to the individual performance of those candidates themselves. Far from demonstrating that any discrimination has been committed, that argument merely emphasises the existence of differences between the candidates taking part in a competition. (see paras 25-26) See: T-27/92 Camera-Lampitelli and Others v Commission [1993] ECR II-873, para. 45; T-153/95 Kaps v Court of Justice [1996] ECRSC I-A-233 and II-663, para. 37; C-254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I-3423, para. 33