ORDER OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Third Chamber)

14 January 1998

Case T-30/97

Juana de la Cruz Vela Palacios

v

Economie and Social Committee of the European Communities

‛Officials — Action for annulment and compensation — Time-limit for bringing an action — Inadmissibility’

Full text in Spanish II-23

Application for:

the annulment, first, of a decision imposing on the applicant the disciplinary measure of relegation in step and, secondly, of a decision reducing her annual leave and for compensation for the nonmaterial damage allegedly suffered by the applicant as a result of those disciplinary measures.

Decision:

Application dismissed.

Abstract of the Order

On 18 April 1995 the applicant, an official of the Economic and Social Committee of the European Communities (ESC), travelled to Ischia (Italy), with the defendant's permission, to undergo three weeks of thermal treatment.

On 28 April 1995 the applicant stopped the thermal treatment following a cardiological examination. On 9 May 1995 she returned to work, stopping once again the next day on doctor's orders.

On 17 May 1995 the defendant requested the applicant to submit documentary evidence of the treatment. The applicant replied that she had sent those documents to the sickness insurance office. The defendant reiterated its request on 2 June 1995.

On 12 July 1995 disciplinary proceedings were initiated against the applicant. On 14 February 1996 the Disciplinary Board delivered an opinion in which its members proposed reprimanding the applicant. The Board requested, in the same opinion, that the days of absence not covered by a medical certificate should be deducted from the applicant's annual leave.

On 27 March 1996 the appointing authority decided to impose on the applicant the disciplinary measure of relegation in step. The applicant acknowledged receipt of the decision on 1 April 1996. She was subsequently informed of the appointing authority's decision to deduct five days of unauthorised leave from her annual leave entitlement for 1996.

The appointing authority accepted the applicant's resignation tendered on 30 March 1996.

On 28 June 1996 the applicant lodged a complaint. By memorandum of 14 October 1996, the appointing authority rejected the complaint. That memorandum was notified to the applicant on 15 October 1996.

Admissibility

Extensions of time-limits on account of distance must be granted according to the place where the applicant is habitually established, in other words, according to his habitual residence (paragraph 25).

See: 28/65 Fonii v Commission [1966] ECR 477; C-137/92 P Commission v BASF and Others [1994] ECR I-2555, para. 40

In order for applicants who are habitually resident outside Europe to be able effectively to avail themselves of the one month's extension of time on account of distance to which they are entitled it is for those applicants to adduce sufficient evidence that they were in fact habitually resident outside Europe during the period prior to their bringing the action. If applicants who avail themselves of the one month's extension time on account of distance were not subject to a requirement to furnish evidence, there would be nothing to prevent large numbers of individuals from circumventing the time-limits applicable to them for bringing an action simply by stating that they reside or have resided in a country outside Europe. Such a situation would not enable the Court of First Instance to verify, as it is required to do, whether the time-limit for bringing proceedings, a matter of public policy, has been complied with (paragraph 26).

See: T-15/91 Bollendorffv Parliament [1992] ECR II-1679, paras 22 and 28; Case T-552/93 Grassi v Commission [1995] ECR-SC II-125, paras 23 and 31

In the present case, it must be observed that the applicant has not adduced any evidence in support of her claim that she was habitually resident in Morocco between the notification of the defendant's decision to reject her complaint and the initiation of the present proceedings (paragraph 27).

Costs

Under the second subparagraph of Article 87(3) of the Rules of Procedure, the Court may order a party, even if successful, to pay costs which the Court considers that party to have unreasonably or vexatiously caused the opposite party to incur (paragraph 32).

The Court finds that, given the facts of the case, the inadmissibility of the applicant's action was foreseeable. The applicant claimed to be entitled to a one month's extension of time on account of distance without having adduced the slightest verifiable evidence to that effect. Moreover, she stated in her pleadings that she had no intention of submitting documents in support of her assertion that she had been staying in Morocco (paragraph 33).

Operative part:

The application is dismissed as inadmissible.

The applicant shall bear all the costs.