2.

More serious are the complaints concerning the consideration of Mr Willame's case by the Board. Mr Willame maintains that although the Board was made up of nine members it sometimes sat with only eight of them present although it is nowhere authorized to hold its discussions in the absence of one or more of its constituent officials. An examination of the minutes in fact shows that Mr Guazzugli Marini was not present at certain meetings, in particular, that on 19 February 1963 during which the opinion on the case of Mr Willame was issued by the eight members present. But this in no way constitutes any irregularity. In the absence of a rule fixing the majority required to give an opinion you have held that a simple majority was sufficient (judgment in the ase of Weighardt of 7 April 1965, Rec. 1965, p. 365) and we know that the majority was ample in this case. In particular, the applicant maintains that the Board infringed the rights of the defence in several ways: it did not allow him the necessary time in which to prepare for his hearing; it made its decision on the basis of an incomplete file by issuing its opinion without having been able to examine important documents which the applicant had said that he had produced; it did not consider the documents to which he referred in order to show his ability to perform his duties. The latter point is certainly the most delicate and the one which leaves an unsavoury taste. Let me reconstruct the time-sequence of the case as far as this is possible. On 5 February 1963 Mr Willame was advised that he would be heard by the Board on 8 February. Only on 7 February was he invited to study the 36 documents running to some 150 pages which had been produced by Dr Recht which, he claims, covered only part of his professional career and could therefore only be usefully considered when complete. At the beginning of his hearing on 8 February he expresses a willingness to offer his observations while making a reservation on this point. Today he claims that this period was too short to enable him to prepare his defence since only during the meeting was he informed of what was held against him. To this the administration replies in defence that the documents produced by Dr Recht were memoranda drafted by the applicant who was thus in a position to acquaint himself with them rapidly. This reply is not entirely convincing for two reasons. First, the documents in question, on which Dr Recht no doubt intended to base his case for Mr Willame's inadequacy, were some what ill-assorted and it was difficult for Mr Willame to realize the effiect that they were to have on the development of the procedure; secondly, certain of these documents bore critical annotations by Dr Recht and the applicant needed time in which to acquaint himself with them and where possible to refute them. The least one can say is that for this purpose the period of 24 hours was rather short. At his hearing the applicant was informed by the Chairman of the Board that he might submit to the Board any documents which he considered would help his case; on 12 February Mr Willame submitted three documents and on the following 8 May, despite the fact that the unfavourable opinion had already been given on 19 February, he submitted 85 other documents running to 450 pages, by which he claimed to prove his ability and the various tasks which he had undertaken. The applicant emphasizes that as he had been given no time-limit in which to produce these documents the Board could not give its report without examining them. This is a doubtful point. The documents sent on 12 February, addressed to the Chairman of the Board, were submitted in order to complete his file and naturally the administration relies on this term. As regards the massive bundle sent on 8 May, this was addressed to the Director-General of Administration on the very day on which the applicant lodged a complaint through official channels against the opinion of the Board, of which he had been unofficially aware for a month. The explanation given here is that, in reply to a request for fuller information from you, Euratom maintained that since these documents were not addressed to the Establishment Board there was no obligation on the body to examine them. This is quite feasible but it would be more convincing if in the rejoinder the institution had not claimed that the documents in question had actually been examined by the Establishment Board. What conclusion must finally be drawn from that? Contrary to the allegation of the applicant, although he had indicated in writing on 7 February that the file was incomplete as regards his career, he had not at that point given notice of the production of ‘numerous documents’ and in the light of the terms in which the submission of the documents was made on 12 February, the Establishment Board was justified in believing them to be the final ones and in closing the proceedings. It had the power to reopen the proceedings as long as the Commission of Euratom had made no definite decision, but it was under no obligation to do so. Moreover, the fact that at his hearing Mr Willame had referred to the weekly news-sheets prepared under his direction and to the welfare card-index started by him did not oblige the Board to obtain these documents; it was up to the applicant to produce them if he considered it useful so to do. Final complaint: after hearing Dr Recht, the author of an unfavourable report, the Board did not feel obliged to hear Vice-President Medi who had indicated in writing his disagreement with the detailed assessments contained therein. Although (his may be regrettable it does not constitute a procedural defect or an infringement of the rights of the defence. Finally, and I repeat, the procedure followed in the inquiry before the Establishment Board leaves an unsavoury taste, but nowhere can I find a clear procedural defect; I am thus unable to consider this submission to be justified.