3.

The applicant then contests the manner in which the Committee conducted its proceedings, together with the conclusions with reference to which the Parliament took its decision to retire him. I do not agree with him on the first point, since it is for the Commission, whose proceedings, pursuant to the third paragraph of Article 9 are to be secret, to conduct them as it thinks fit. In particular the provisions do not require the Committee to make a personal examination of the official and, contrary to what the applicant claims, the existence of many diseases and their consequences may be appraised from documents. On the other hand, it is clear that the conclusions of the Committee, to which the same Article refers, must by definition reflect, if not the unanimous opinion, at least the opinion of the majority of its members. For reasons which have been amply explained, Mr Alfieri disputes that this was so in the present case. Two facts appear clear from the report drawn up and signed on 5 November 1965 by the Chairman of the Committee: unanimous agreement on the finding that the state of his ill health had become permanent and that the patient suffered from total permanent invalidity preventing him from performing his duties; and the refusal of the two other members of the Committee to sign the minutes of the deliberations. The two aspects of this report do not necessarily conflict with each other: it is sufficient to imagine a case where refusal to sign the document is motivated by reasons other than disagreement on the substance of the conclusions, that is to say, on the sole point guiding the Parliament's subsequent decision. Nevertheless you considered the questions sufficiently important and doubtful to decide of your own motion to hear the three members of the Committee as witnesses. After hearing Dr Stein and Dr Roger Welter and reading the written statement sent to you by the Chairman of the Committee, whose state of health prevented him from travelling, it seems to me impossible to give a favourable interpretation to the terms of the report. I do not wish to dwell on the details of those two hearings in which reference might be made to certain discrepancies and silences. It is not important to decide for what reason or under what influence those doctors felt that they must adopt the attitude which they did on the Committee. It is no more necessary for me to appraise whether they were right in so doing. One may, however, experience surprise that they did not feel themselves bound to notify their change of opinion to the author of the report, as soon as they knew of the report, with the attitudes ascribed to them which they now dispute. But the important point is the statements which you have heard and which in their essentials arrive at the same results. Dr Roger Welter said that it is not true that the Committee reached agreement with regard to Mr Alfieri's state of health. And, in somewhat different terms, Dr Stein stated that the Committee made no finding and that he refused to sign the report as it did not correspond to the facts. Thus both dispute that there was a unanimous or even a majority opinion in the Committee in finding the applicant's degree of invalidity. Let us now compare this with the written statement addressed to you by Dr Éloi Welter. Certainly there is first of all the summary of his report of 5 November 1965, but, after noting that his two colleagues had refused to sign this document, the Chairman of the Committee concludes with this paragraph which must be quoted verbatim: ‘For this reason, the conclusions with regard to total permanent invalidity, which, in my opinion, emerged from our meeting of 22 September 1965, are only binding on their signatory’. Does this not recognize that from the outset there was a disagreement? Dr Eloi Welter thought at the outset that his colleagues were in agreement with him on the substance of the question of the degree of Mr Alfieri's invalidity; at the outset this was his opinion, but he now no longer holds this view. The conclusions which must necessarily be drawn from these findings appear to me the following. The cancellation of the conclusions of the report renders the retirement decision which the Parliament felt itself bound to take on the basis of the document addressed to it unfounded. This decision should therefore be annulled, without its being necessary to comment on the final complaint of the application which, inany event, seems to me unfounded. Mr Alfieri complains that the Committee did not properly consider, as the first paragraph of Article 13 of Annex VIII to the Staff Regulations requires, whether he was unfit for posts in his career bracket other than that which he held. The Committee's findings — if it is necessary to recall them — in fact give the impression that the disease from which the applicant suffers renders it impossible for him to perform any duty. I am aware that the solution which I suggest to you may be unsatisfactory in more than one respect. The decision of the Italian Parliament, which also retired Mr Alfieri on grounds of health, and the fact that the latter never formally maintained that he was capable of resuming his duties in the near future might give rise to the presumption that he actually suffers from permanent invalidity, as does the determination which he displayed in impeding the formation of the Committee to decide his case. But the question on which the contested decision depended was essentially medical; we may not substitute our appraisal for that of the doctors. Moreover, if the institution was right, as I have said, in by-passing by Mr Alfieri's obstruction, it remains bound to accept the opinion of the Invalidity Committee. This is a condition too clearly laid down in the Staff Regulations to admit of exceptions to it. Apart from the annulment which he requests, Mr Alfieri has brought before you conclusions for damages estimated by him at 120000 francs, of which 100000 francs represent the non-material damage which he suffered through being retired. This damage has not been proved, any more than the material damage which will disappear with the annulment of the contested decision; the conclusions of the application on this point should therefore be rejected.