JUDGMENT OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

25 February 2015

Case T‑261/14 P

Robert Walton

v

European Commission

(Appeal — Civil service — Temporary staff — Action at first instance dismissed as manifestly inadmissible — Resignation from a post as a member of the temporary staff — Amount of the debt owed by the appellant to the Commission following his resignation — Authority of res judicata — Decisions which have become final in the absence of legal action)

Appeal: against the order of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (Third Chamber) of 27 February 2014 in Walton v Commission (F‑32/13, ECR-SC, EU:F:2014:37), and seeking that that order be set aside.

Held: The appeal is dismissed. Mr Robert Walton is to bear his own costs and is ordered to pay those incurred by the European Commission in connection with the present proceedings.

Summary

1. Appeals — Pleas in law — Inadequate statement of reasons — Civil Service Tribunal’s use of implicit reasoning — Lawfulness — Conditions

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 36 and Anne I, Art. 7(1))

2. Judicial proceedings — Res judicata — Scope

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

3. EU law — Principles — Rights of the defence — Audi alteram partem rule — Compliance in the context of judicial proceedings — Scope — Decision of the Union judicature to declare an action inadmissible on account of the force of res judicata — Infringement of the audi alteram partem rule — None

1. The Civil Service Tribunal’s obligation to state the reasons for its judgments does not require it to provide an account that follows exhaustively and point by point all the reasoning articulated by the parties to the case. The reasoning may therefore be implicit on condition that it enables the party concerned to know why the court of first instance has not upheld his arguments and provides the appeal court with sufficient material for it to exercise its power of review.

(see paras 16, 17, 22-25)

See:

Judgment of 1 September 2010 in Skareby v Commission, T‑91/09 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2010:338, para. 36 and the case-law cited therein, and order of 27 February 2014 in Walton v Commission, F‑32/13, ECR-SC, EU:F:2014:37, para. 48

2. The force of res judicata attaching to a judgment can constitute a bar to the admissibility of an action if the action which gave rise to the judgment in question was between the same parties, had the same subject-matter and was founded on the same grounds, those conditions necessarily being cumulative. The principle of res judicata extends to the matters of fact and law actually or necessarily settled by a judicial decision.

Moreover, the time-limits prescribed in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations, being designed to ensure the certainty of legal positions, are a matter of public policy and are binding on the parties and the Court. An official cannot therefore contrive to cause time to run afresh by submitting to the appointing authority a request within the meaning of Article 90(1) of the Staff Regulations. The fact that an institution goes into the substance of a request which is out of time and therefore inadmissible cannot have the effect of derogating from the system of mandatory time-limits and re-establishing a right of action.

Consequently, it must be considered whether the actions which gave rise to the earlier judgments and the action brought in the case in question have the same subject-matter and are founded on the same grounds, and whether the earlier final decisions had the same subject-matter as the complaints which gave rise to the contested decisions.

(see paras 35-38)

See:

Judgments of 19 February 1991 in Italy v Commission, C‑281/89, ECR, EU:C:1991:59, para. 14, and 15 May 2008 in Spain v Council, C‑442/04, ECR, EU:C:2008:276, para. 25

Judgments of 22 September 1994 in Carrer and Others v Court of Justice, T‑495/93, ECR-SC, EU:T:1994:242, para. 20; 14 July 1998 in Lebedef v Commission, T‑42/97, ECR-SC, EU:T:1998:163, para. 25; order of 17 December 2009 in Nijs v Court of Auditors, T‑567/08 P, ECR-SC, EU:T:2009:523, para. 32, and judgment of 8 March 2012 in Kerstens v Commission, F‑12/10, ECR-SC, EU:F:2012:29, para. 85 and the case-law cited therein

3. The rights of the defence occupy a prominent position in the organisation and conduct of a fair trial and include the audi alteram partem rule. Compliance with that rule generally means that the parties to proceedings have a right to be given the opportunity to comment on the facts and documents on which a judicial decision will be based and to discuss the evidence produced and the observations made to the court as well as the pleas in law raised by the court of its own motion on which it intends to base its decision.

An applicant’s right to a fair trial is not undermined by a decision of the Union judicature to declare an action inadmissible by referring to judgments which have acquired the force of res judicata, in which the issues raised in the action were discussed between the parties, and to decisions which have become final because the applicant did not make use of the administrative or judicial remedies available.

(see paras 65, 67-69)

See:

Judgment of 17 December 2009 in Réexamen M v EMEA, C‑197/09 RX-II, ECR, EU:C:2009:804, paras 39 to 41 and the case-law cited therein

Order in Walton v Commission, EU:F:2014:37, paras 43 to 48