JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber)

5 November 2003

Case T-240/01

Jean-Louis Cougnon

v

Court of Justice of the European Communities

‛Officials — Appointments procedure — Grade A 2 post — Candidature rejected’

Full text in French II-1283

Application for:

the annulment of a decision rejecting the applicant's candidature for the post of Director of Personnel and Finances at the Court of Justice and appointing another candidate.

Held:

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

Summary

Officials — Vacant post — Post in grade A 2 with the Court of Justice — Procedure — Registrar's competence to propose an appointment after considering the candidates' comparative merits — Whether intervention by the administrative committee is permissible prior to the Court's decision

In accordance with the first and second indents of Article 2(2) of the decision of the Court of Justice concerning the appointing authority, it is the Court itself which exercises the powers conferred upon the appointing authority under the Staff Regulations as regards, first, an appointment to a grade A 2 post and, second, the decision to fill a vacant post at that grade and the determination of the procedure for doing so. Under Article 11 of the Court's decision concerning the appointing authority, appointments and promotions falling within the competence of the Court are decided on a proposal from the Registrar. Thus, the combined provisions of Articles 2(2) and 11 of the Court's decision concerning the appointing authority legitimise and even require the intervention of the Registrar in the procedure for filling a grade A 2 post, without any need for the Court to delegate that duty to him ad hoc. The task entrusted to the Registrar of putting forward a proposal for appointment necessarily gives him the option of considering the comparative merits of the candidates. As for the administrative committee, which is composed of members appointed by the Court itself and chaired by the President of the Court, the fact that there is no general provision expressly referring to its intervention in the appointment procedure for a grade A 2 post does not mean that, in order to legitimise such an intervention, a prior decision to that effect is required from the Court as the appointing authority. Thus it is entirely permissible for the Registrar to put his proposal to the administrative committee for its opinion, before it is put to the Court in its turn for a decision in its capacity as the appointing authority. (see paras 40, 42-45, 47) See: T-6/96 Contargyris v Council [1997] ECRSC I-A-119 and II-357, para. 71

The appointing authority is required to comply with the vacancy notice which it has drawn up, since that notice, approved under Article 29 of the Staff Regulations, determines the conditions for taking up the post in question. The function of the vacancy notice is, first, to give those interested the most accurate information possible as to the conditions of eligibility for the post to enable them to establish whether they should apply for it and, second, to set the limits of legality within which the institution intends to undertake a comparison of the candidates' merits. The appointing authority fails to comply with those limits of legality if it becomes aware of conditions specially required to fill a post declared vacant only after the vacancy notice has been published, regard being had to the candidates who have come forward, and if it takes account, when considering the applications, of conditions other than those set out in the vacancy notice. (see paras 112-113) See: Contargyris v Council, cited above, paras 97 and 98, and the case-law cited