ORDER OF THE GENERAL COURT (Appeal Chamber)

6 September 2010

Case T-60/08 P

Georgi Kerelov

v

European Commission

(Appeal — Civil service — Recruitment — Notice of competition — Non-inclusion on the reserve list — Exclusion from competition for infringement of the rule prohibiting candidates from making direct or indirect contact with the selection board — Appeal in part manifestly inadmissible and in part manifestly unfounded)

Appeal: against the judgment of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal (Second Chamber) of 29 November 2007 in Case F-19/07 Kerelov v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-1-399 and II-A-1-2227, seeking to have that judgment set aside.

Held: The appeal is dismissed. Mr Georgi Kerelov is to bear his own costs and to pay those incurred by the European Commission in the present proceedings.

Summary

1. Procedure — Time-limits — Time-limit on account of distance

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 9; Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Arts 96(4) and 102(2))

2. Appeal — Pleas in law — Mistaken assessment of the facts — Inadmissibility — Review by the General Court of the assessment of the evidence — Possible only where the clear sense of the evidence has been distorted

(Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 11)

3. Officials — Competitions — Selection board — Disciplinary power to exclude a candidate from a competition

(Staff Regulations, Art. 30; Annex III, Art. 5, fifth para.)

4. Appeal — Pleas in law — Error of law relied on not identified — Inadmissibility

(Art. 225a EC; Statute of the Court of Justice, Annex I, Art. 11(1); Rules of Procedure of the General Court, Art. 138(1), first subpara., under (c))

1. Under the terms of Article 96(4) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court, the introduction of an application for legal aid suspends the period prescribed for the bringing of the action until the date of notification of the order making a decision on that application. In that respect, the time-limit on account of distance is not to be regarded as separate from the procedural time-limit, but simply as an extension of the latter. The time-limit for bringing an action within the meaning of Article 96(4) of the Rules of Procedure must be understood to mean the time-limit for bringing an action plus a fixed time-limit on account of distance of 10 days.

(see paras 14-16)

See: T-85/97 Horeca-Wallonie v Commission [1997] ECR II-2113, para. 26

2. The court of first instance has exclusive jurisdiction to find the facts, except where the substantive inaccuracy of its findings is apparent from the documents submitted to it, and to assess those facts. Thus, the appraisal of the facts by the first instance court does not, except in the case of distortion of the evidence submitted to that court, constitute a question of law which, as such, is subject to review by the General Court.

Furthermore, as well as having no jurisdiction to find the facts, the appeal court is also not competent, in principle, to consider the evidence which the court of first instance has admitted in support of the finding of those facts. As long as the evidence was duly obtained and the rules and general principles of law relating to the burden of proof were observed, as also were the rules of procedure in relation to the taking of evidence, it is for the court of first instance alone to assess the value which should be attached to the items of evidence produced to it. That appraisal does not therefore constitute — save where the clear sense of that evidence has been distorted — a point of law which, as such, is open to review by the General Court.

Such distortion must be obvious from the documents on the Court’s file, without there being any need to carry out a new assessment of the facts and the evidence.

(see paras 28-29)

See: judgment of 27 April 2006 in C-230/05 P L v Commission, not published in the ECR, paras 45 and 46; T-222/07 P Kerstens v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I-B-1-37 and II-B-1-267, paras 60-62; T-404/06 P ETF v Landgren [2009] ECR II-2841, paras 191 and 192

3. Article 30 of the Staff Regulations and the fifth paragraph of Article 5 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations expressly confer on the selection board the authority to draw up the list of suitable candidates, which necessarily implies the authority to exclude from a competition a candidate who has breached the prohibition on contacting members of the selection board set out in the notice of competition.

(see para. 61)

4. It follows from Article 225a EC, Article 11(1) of Annex I to the Statute of the Court of Justice and Article 138(1), first subparagraph, (c), of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court that an appeal must indicate precisely the contested elements of the judgment which the appellant seeks to have set aside and also the legal arguments specifically advanced in support of the appeal.

That requirement is not satisfied by an appeal which does not include any argument specifically identifying the error of law allegedly vitiating the judgment or order in question.

Moreover, statements which are too general and imprecise to be legally assessed must be regarded as manifestly inadmissible.

(see paras 75-76)

See: C-19/95 P San Marco v Commission [1996] ECR I-4435, para. 37; C-51/92 P Hercules Chemicals v Commission [1999] ECR I-4235, para. 113; C-300/99 P and C-388/99 P Area Cova and Others v Council [2001] ECR I-983, para. 37; order of 12 December 2006 in C-129/06 P Autosalone Ispra v Commission, not published in the ECR, paras 31 and 32; order of 29 November in C-107/07 P Weber v Commission, not published in the ECR, para. 24; T-107/07 P Rossi Ferreras v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I-B-1-5 and II-B-1-31, para. 27