JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Third Chamber)

20 September 2001

Case T-95/01

Gerald Coget and Others

v

Court of Auditors of the European Communities

‛Officials — Post of Secretary-General — Call for applications — ‘High level’ experience — Wide discretion of the institution — Call to interview’

Full text in French II-879

Application for:

annulment of the decision of the Court of Auditors of 22 February 2001 to appoint Michel Hervé to the post of Secretary-General of the institution with effect from 1 July 2001.

Held:

The application is dismissed. The parties are to bear their own costs, including those arising from the two applications for interim relief.

Summary

Officials — Temporary staff — Temporary staff in Grade A 1 as referred to in Article 2(a) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants — Recruitment — Qualifications in the call for applications — ‘High level’ professional experience — Discretion of the authority authorised to conclude contracts of engagement — Conditions — Judicial review

Officials — Temporary staff — Temporary staff in Grade A 1 as referred to in Art. 2(a) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants — Recruitment — Choice of methods of organising the selection procedure and conduct of that procedure — Discretion of the authority authorised to conclude contracts of engagement — Call for applications — Purpose — Conditions for admission

Officials — Actions — Interest in bringing proceedings — Action for annulment of an appointment of a member of the temporary staff, brought by an official after refusing to take part in the procedure leading to the appointment — Inadmissibility of the action — Conditions

An official who has voluntarily decided not to apply for a vacant post and has thus refused to take part in the appointment procedure cannot then challenge the appointment of a third party, made as the result of a procedure which has followed its normal course. That principle applies mutatis mutandis where the applicant has voluntarily decided not to respond to a call for applications for the selection of a member of the temporary staff. (see para. 38) See: 252/81 Macevicius v Parliament [1983] ECR 867, para. 10

Since the procedures and obligations relating to the recruitment of officials do not apply to the recruitment of a member of the temporary staff in Grade A 1, as referred to in Article 2(a) of the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, the authority authorised to conclude contracts of engagement has a very wide discretion both in the choice of the methods of organising the selection procedure and in the conduct of that procedure. In particular, an institution is not obliged to publish any form of call for applications for the recruitment of its secretary-general. Consequently, although it is true that, just as a notice of vacancy is binding on the appointing authority, the authority authorised to conclude contracts of engagement is obliged to comply with the conditions laid down in the call for applications which it chooses freely to issue, it cannot be a ground of complaint against it that it did not provide a more precise and detailed description of some of the conditions set out in that call. Moreover, the relevant rule - that a notice of competition may lawfully merely repeat, without specifying the level of experience required for the post to be filled, the general wording of Article 5(1) of the Staff Regulations for the category to which that post belongs and thus leave it to the Selection Board to decide in each case whether the qualifications and diplomas produced and the professional experience claimed by each candidate correspond to the level required by the Staff Regulations, and therefore by the notice, for the performance of the duties in question - is a fortiori transposable where the post in question is a high level temporary staff post for which an institution has freely decided to use the procedure of a call for applications. (see paras 56, 58, 69) See: 225/87 Belardinelli and Others v Court of Justice [1989] ECR 2353, paras 13 and 14; T-46/89 Pitrone v Commission [1990] ECR II-577, para. 26; T-21/98 Leite Mateus v Commission [1999] ECRSC I-A-25 and II-107, para. 31

The authority authorised to conclude contracts of engagement has a wide discretion, in particular where the post to be filled is a Grade A 1 or A 2 post, to decide whether the professional experience claimed by each candidate corresponds to the level required by the call for applications which it was, moreover, not obliged to issue. That assessment cannot be called in question, except in the event of a manifest error. (see para. 113) See: Kerzmann v Court of Auditors, cited above, paras 19 and 20; Moritz v Commission, cited above, para. 29; Kalavros v Court of Justice, cited above; Kotzonis v ESC, cited above, para. 81; Ryan-Sheridan v EFILWC, cited above; Picciolo and Caló v Committee of the Regions, cited above, para. 95; Forvass v Commission, cited above, para. 45