Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Officials ° Remuneration ° Family allowances ° Dependent child allowance ° Extension without age limit ° Conditions ° Impossibility of child earning a livelihood ° Criteria

(Staff Regulations of Officials, Annex VII, Art. 2(5))

2. Officials ° Remuneration ° Family allowances ° Dependent child allowance ° Doubling in the event of heavy expenditure ° Criteria

(Staff Regulations of Officials, Art. 67(3))

3. Officials ° Principles ° Protection of legitimate expectations ° Legal certainty ° Acquired rights ° Withdrawal ex nunc of the benefit of an allowance previously granted in error ° Breach ° None

4. Acts of the institutions ° Withdrawal ° Unlawful acts ° Conditions

Summary

1. An official is entitled to payment of dependent child allowance without any age limitation if the child is suffering from a serious illness or disability preventing him from earning a livelihood, as envisaged by Article 2(5) of Annex VII to the Staff Regulations, and the administration finds that the conditions imposed by that provision are satisfied.

For those conditions to be satisfied, it is not necessary either for payment of the allowance to have been uninterrupted after the period during which it was paid pursuant to Article 2(3) of Annex VII, or for the illness or disability to have started before expiry of the period during which the allowance was paid pursuant to Article 2(3).

As for the condition that the child must be unable to earn a livelihood, it must be verified in each individual case, having regard to the situation of the persons concerned and to the strict interpretation which must be given to Community law provisions conferring entitlement to financial benefits, whether the social purpose of paying the allowance has been achieved. That is no longer the case if, by reason of the illness or disability, the child acquires an independent right to national benefits of such an amount that he can no longer be regarded as being in need. The fixing of that amount at 40% of the remuneration of an official of Grade D 4, Step 1, is a correct interpretation of Article 2(5).

2. For the purposes of Article 67(3) of the Staff Regulations, which provides for the doubling of dependent child allowance if the child concerned is suffering from a mental or physical handicap which involves the official in heavy expenditure, it is a correct interpretation of that provision to regard expenditure as "heavy" if it exceeds 20% of the official' s remuneration or pension.

3. An official may not plead breach of the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations unless the administration has given precise assurances. There is therefore no breach of that principle, or of the principle of legal certainty, where payment of an allowance, to which the beneficiary had no claim under the relevant rules, is terminated at the expiry of the period for which it was granted.

Moreover, the withdrawal ex nunc of a benefit based on a situation which, so far as the Staff Regulations are concerned, is irregular cannot be regarded as an infringement of acquired rights, nor need it be accompanied by temporary continuation of the benefit.

4. The right of the administration to withdraw an unlawful measure with retroactive effect is restricted by the need to fulfil the legitimate expectations of a beneficiary of the measure, who has been led to rely on the lawfulness thereof.