JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(First Chamber)

10 November 2009

Case F-71/08

N

v

European Parliament

(Civil service – Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Fixing of objectives – Manifest error of assessment – Admissibility – Measure not having adverse effects)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which N seeks, in particular, annulment of the decision of the Secretary-General of the Parliament of 12 September 2007 adopting his staff report for 2006, and of the decision of the President of the Parliament of 22 May 2008 rejecting his complaint against that first decision.

Held: The decision of the Secretary-General of the Parliament of 12 September 2007 adopting the applicant’s definitive staff report for the period from 16 August 2006 to 31 December 2006 is annulled. The remainder of the application is dismissed. The Parliament is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

1. Officials – Actions – Interest in bringing proceedings – Action for annulment of a staff report – Official reassigned to another institution – Report not taken into consideration by that institution

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2. Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Obligation to bring to the attention of the official concerned the document fixing the objectives assigned to his department

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

1. Irrespective of its future usefulness, an official’s staff report constitutes written, formal evidence of the quality of the work carried out by the person concerned. Such an appraisal does not merely describe the tasks performed during the relevant period, but also includes an assessment of the personal qualities shown by the individual assessed in the conduct of his professional life. Therefore, every official has a right to have his work recognised by means of an appraisal carried out in a just and equitable manner. Consequently, in accordance with the right to effective judicial protection, officials must in any event be acknowledged as having the right to challenge their staff report on account of its content or because it has not been drawn up in accordance with the rules laid down by the Staff Regulations.

Thus the reassignment of an official from one institution to another institution, the second institution’s failure to take into consideration the staff reports drawn up by the first, and the promotion of the official within the second institution are not such as to remove his interest in bringing proceedings against a definitive staff report drawn up by the first of the institutions.

(see paras 33-34)

See:

C-198/07 P Gordon v Commission [2008] ECR I‑10701, paras 44 and 45

2. It follows from Articles 10 to 12 of the general implementing provisions for Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, adopted by the Parliament, that that institution must give each of its officials or other staff, at the assessment interview, a copy of a document setting out the objectives assigned to his directorate, unit or department for the coming year. That document constitutes a vital element in the assessment of the official’s or staff member’s performance the following year and in the drawing up of his staff report. Furthermore, where the official or staff member so requests at the assessment interview, the administration must draw up a document providing further details of his own personal objectives.

Even if those provisions do not explicitly govern a situation where an official is first assigned or is transferred from another institution to the Parliament in the course of the year, they may not be interpreted as meaning that the Parliament is not obliged to bring to that official’s attention the document setting out the objectives assigned to his department, to which he will be required to contribute. Such a document, which exists for every unit or department irrespective of the procedure for drawing up the staff report of each official or staff member, constitutes a reference point for assessing the performance of the official or staff member and drawing up the staff report. Any other interpretation of those provisions would infringe the principle of equal treatment, since it would have the effect of treating officials or staff members differently, regarding the assignment of objectives, depending on the date when they entered the Parliament, and that difference in treatment would be disproportionate to the difference in situation resulting from that factor. Moreover, for a new official it is particularly necessary to assign objectives when he arrives in a unit or department into which he must be integrated as quickly as possible.

(see paras 51, 52, 54-55)