ORDER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (First Chamber)

29 June 2010

Case F-11/10

María Soledad Palou Martínez

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Officials — Manifestly inadmissible — Delay — Failure to follow the pre-litigation procedure — Article 35(1)(e) of the Rules of Procedure)

Application: brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, in which Ms Palou Martínez asks the Tribunal ‘to examine the facts and circumstances surrounding [her] situation, and having done that … to order a resolution approving [her] claims’; to annul ‘the decision of the [European] Commission’; to instruct the Commission to ‘recognise and guarantee [her] post and category in Barcelona’ (Spain) and, ‘consequently’, to ‘return [to her] her post, her implied category and all her remuneration from the time when she was declared fit and able to work’.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. The applicant is ordered to bear her own costs.

Summary

1. Officials — Actions — Purpose — Direction to the administration — Ruling — Inadmissibility

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

2. Officials — Actions — Action for annulment not brought within the time-limit — Action for damages aiming to achieve the same result — Inadmissibility

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

3. Officials — Actions — Action for damages brought without a pre-litigation procedure in accordance with the Staff Regulations — Inadmissibility

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

1. In an action brought under Article 91 of the Staff Regulations, heads of claim requesting the Civil Service Tribunal to address directions to the administration or to recognise the validity of certain pleas in law relied on in support of a claim for annulment are manifestly inadmissible, since it is not for the Union judicature to issue directions to the institutions of the Union or to make statements of law. That applies to claims requesting the Civil Service Tribunal to establish the existence of certain facts and to instruct the administration to adopt measures such as to reinstate the person concerned in their rights.

(see paras 29-31)

See:

C-41/88 and C-178/88 Becker and Starquit v Parliament [1989] ECR 3807, summary publication, para. 2

T-94/92 X v Commission [1994] ECR-SC I-A-149 and II-481, para. 32; T-300/97 Latino v Commission [1999] ECR-SC I-A-259 and II-1263, para. 28 and the case-law cited therein; T-154/05 Lo Giudice v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-2-203 and II-A-2-1309, para. 55 and the case-law cited therein

F-57/06 Hinderyckx v Council [2007] ECR-SC I-A-1-329 and II-A-1-1831, para. 65

2. An action for damages cannot enable an official to challenge an act adversely affecting him which he has not previously contested within the time-limits laid down in the Staff Regulations.

(see para. 43)

See:

F-4/07 Skoulidi v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I-A-1-47 and II-A-1-229, paras 69 and 70 and the case-law cited therein

3. Under Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations, an action for damages must, as a matter of course, begin with a request addressed to the administration and continue with a complaint directed against the rejection of that request. Consequently, if that two-stage procedure has not been followed before proceedings are brought before the Civil Service Tribunal, the action must be dismissed as manifestly inadmissible.

(see para. 44)

See:

T-36/93 Ojha v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-161 and II-497, para. 117; T-15/96 Liao v Council [1997] ECR-SC I-A-329 and II-897, para. 57

F-23/05 Giraudy v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-1-121 and II-A-1-657, para. 69; Skoulidi v Commission, para. 56