4.

None of the allegations of inadmissibility made by the defendant can be upheld. In the first place, the action for annulment brought by Mrs Licata is certainly not devoid of purpose since, to this day, she is still a member of the Staff Committee and the general elections which would have marked the expiry of her term of office have been deferred by an Order of 11 June 1985 made in Case 146/85 Diezler [1985] ECR 1805, until the Court has given judgment in that case. Her interest in bringing an action, far from being theoretical, is therefore an actual and present interest. In any event, the question of the costs of those procceedings remains outstanding and that in itself might constitute the applicant's interest in pursuing her action. In the second place, whilst the conclusions set out in the complaint and in the action are not identical, the differences are only of form. Thus, the first head of claim in the application — for annulment of the measure which prevented the applicant from discharging her duties by ‘excluding her from the Staff Committee pursuant to Decision No 173/84 A’ — is a synthesis of the two heads of claim set out in the complaint. As regards the second, concerning the ESC's decision to hold ad hoc elections, it is a necessary complement to the first. There is, to use the phrase employed by Mr Advocate General Mancini in his opinion in Case 173/84 Rasmussen, a ‘fundamental continuity’ between the claims made in the complaint and those made in the application. The alleged differences in the way they are formulated does not appear to be decisive, in so far as the conclusions in the application ‘change neither the legal basis nor the subject-matter of the complaint’ (judgment of 23 January 1986 in Case 173/84 Rasmussen [1986] ECR 197, paragraph 12). In fact, the question of admissibility must be considered in relation to the measure, ascribable to the ESC, applying General Decision No 173/84 A to the applicant. The ESC cannot seriously maintain that by reason of the independence of the Staff Committee, the decisions adopted by it are unreservedly binding. The Community institutions and organs are under an obligation to ensure that all decisions adopted by elected bodies within them are lawful. That was the conclusion reached by the Court after a detailed analysis of the relevant provisions of the Staff Regulations in the judgment in the leading case of De Dapper (Case 54/75 [1976] ECR 1381), in which exactly the same question was raised in proceedings concerning staff committee elections; the Court emphasized that: ‘institutions are not only entitled to intervene of their own volition when they have doubts as to the legality of elections to the Staff Committee but must in addition settle complaints which may be submitted to them in this connection under the procedure laid down by Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations’ (Case 54/75, supra, paragraph 23). The Court inferred that ‘such a duty’ arose by virtue of Article 9 (2) of the Staff Regulations which makes it the responsibility of each institution or body to determine the ‘composition and procedure’ of the Staff Committee and, more generally, ‘from the power of organization which each institution exercises within its own sphere of jurisdiction and from its duty to ensure that officials have complete freedom to choose their representatives in accordance with democratic rules’ (Case 54/75, supra, paragraph 22). Quite apart from the dispute regarding the elections, those matters of principle are conducive to the view that each Community body is obliged to review the legality of measures relating both to the composition and to the procedure of the Staff Committee. That represents an essential safeguard for every official, since it is the basis for review by the Court. Indeed — it was confirmed at the hearing — the ESC, by its letter of 11 October 1984, determined the specific application of General Decision No 173/84 A to the individual situation created by Mrs Licata's change from one scheme of employment to another. That letter was a reflection of its obligation to intervene and reactivated the General Decision to which I referred, the operation of which had until then been suspended. By that individual decision the ESC — whether rightly or wrongly will become apparent from consideration of the substance of the case — definitively established, by implication, that Mrs Licata was no longer qualified to discharge the duties which had been entrusted to her and confirmed the decision whereby the Staff Committee had on 9 October 1984 initiated the electoral process to replace the applicant, whose place on the Committee was regarded as having fallen vacant. The individual decision adopted on 11 October 1984 must therefore be seen as the measure adversely affecting the applicant, of which she seeks the annulment. Accordingly both the complaint and the application were lodged within the periods prescribed by the Staff Regulations and must be declared admissible.