Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Officials ° Invalidity ° Invalidity Committee ° Review by the Court ° Scope ° Limits

(Staff Regulations, Art. 78)

2. Officials ° Invalidity ° Invalidity Committee ° Consideration of previous medical reports ° Power of assessment of the Invalidity Committee

(Staff Regulations, Art. 78)

3. Officials ° Invalidity ° Finding as to the occupational origin of the invalidity ° Failure to inform the official of the results of the medical examinations provided for in the Staff Regulations ° Proof of the occupational origin of the invalidity or its aggravation ° None

(Staff Regulations, Art. 78, second para.)

4. Procedure ° Introduction of new pleas in law in the course of proceedings ° Conditions ° Application to proceedings following referral of a case back to the Court of First Instance after an appeal

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Arts 48(2) and 120)

5. Officials ° Invalidity ° Invalidity Committee ° Occupational origin of the invalidity ° Requirement for a clear and precise finding

(Staff Regulations, Art. 78, second para.; Annex VIII, Art. 13)

Summary

1. Whilst the powers of review of the Court of First Instance may not extend to medical appraisals properly so-called, made by an Invalidity Committee, it nevertheless has jurisdiction to examine whether the opinion of that Committee contains reasons enabling the reader to assess the considerations on which the conclusions which it contains were based.

The conclusions duly arrived at by an Invalidity Committee may not be disputed before the Court of First Instance in the absence of any new matter of fact arising. That new matter of fact may not consist in the production by the applicant of medical certificates calling in question the conclusions of the Invalidity Committee but putting forward no ground which would suggest that the Committee did not have knowledge of the principal facts contained in the applicant' s medical records.

2. It is for the Invalidity Committee to decide to what extent account should be taken of medical reports drawn up in advance.

The fact that the Invalidity Committee reached a different conclusion from that expressed in a previous medical opinion is not in itself sufficient to cast doubt on the legality of the Invalidity Committee' s conclusions.

3. The existence of a causal link between an occupational disease or its aggravation and the duties performed by an official with the Communities, as required under the second paragraph of Article 78 of the Staff Regulations, cannot be proved by a mere assertion by the official that he was not informed of the results of medical examinations which he underwent before or after entering the service, even if the truth of that assertion and the validity of the official' s interpretation of those results were to be established. It is a quite separate question whether the administration may incur liability in respect of a failure to inform an official of information obtained in the course of the medical examinations provided for in the Staff Regulations.

4. Under Article 48(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, which also applies, by virtue of Article 120 of those Rules, to the procedure following the referral of a case back to the Court of First Instance, no new plea in law may be introduced in the course of proceedings unless it is based on matters of law or fact which have come to light in the course of the procedure.

A plea concerning the findings of fact made by the Court of First Instance in the judgment set aside, a plea based in part on observations made by the Court of Justice in its judgment on appeal, the remainder of which constitutes a reformulation of one of the arguments put forward by the applicant at the beginning of the proceedings, and a plea concerning matters of fact of which the applicant had no knowledge when he lodged his application are thus admissible even though submitted for the first time in the proceedings following the referral of the case back to the Court of First Instance.

5. The existence of an occupational disease as the origin of an official' s invalidity for the purposes of the second paragraph of Article 78 of the Staff Regulations must appear clearly and precisely from the conclusions of the Invalidity Committee provided for in Article 13 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations.

That is manifestly not the case where those conclusions find that there is little likelihood of any causal link between the disease giving rise to the official' s invalidity and his performance of his duties.