Keywords

Summary



Keywords

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1. Officials ° Actions ° Action for damages ° Action invoking the duty of the administration jointly and severally to make good damage caused to an official by a third party ° Admissibility ° Conditions ° Exhaustion of national remedies ° Exception ° Absence of effective remedies

(Staff Regulations, Arts 24 and 91)

2. Officials ° Actions ° Action for damages ° Object ° Declaration of service-related fault and of obligation of the institution responsible to repair damage

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

3. Officials ° Actions ° Action for damages ° Pre-litigation procedure ° Difference according to whether or not there is an act adversely affecting an official

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

4. Officials ° Actions ° Action for damages ° Prior administrative complaint ° Precise and determinable subject-matter ° Official relying on administration' s duty to provide assistance

(Staff Regulations, Arts 24, 90 and 91)

5. Officials ° Administration' s duty to provide assistance ° Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 24)

6. Officials ° Actions ° Action for damages ° Declaration in the operative part of the judgment of service-related fault on the part of the administration and publication of the operative part in the Official Journal not constituting appropriate reparation of non-material damage ° Grant of financial compensation

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

Summary

1. The admissibility of an action for damages brought by an official invoking the obligation of the administration under the second paragraph of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations jointly and severally to compensate an official for damage suffered by reason of his position or duties at the hands of a third party, is dependent on the exhaustion of national remedies in so far as they are capable of resulting in compensation for the damage alleged. An applicant who has not attempted to obtain compensation from the third party must at least adduce evidence of a nature such as to give rise to serious doubts as to the effectiveness of the protection afforded by national remedies.

2. Claims for a declaration of a service-related fault, such as breach of the duty to provide assistance under the second paragraph of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations, and claims for a declaration that the defendant institution is required to make good the damage caused by that fault are admissible in the context of an action for damages brought by an official on the basis of Article 91 of the Staff Regulations.

3. Where an official wishes to bring an action for damages against the institution which employs him, the pre-litigation procedure required by the Staff Regulations differs according to whether the damage for which compensation is sought is alleged to have been caused by an act adversely affecting the official within the meaning of Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations or the damage is alleged to have been caused by conduct containing nothing in the nature of a decision. In the first situation the admissibility of the action for damages is subject to the condition that the person concerned has submitted to the appointing authority, within the period prescribed, a complaint against the act which caused him damage and that he brought his action within a period of three months from the rejection of that complaint. In the second situation, on the other hand, the administrative procedure, which must necessarily precede the action for damages, in accordance with Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations, comprises two stages, that is to say, first, a request and, next, a complaint against the express or implied rejection of that request.

4. Since the administration, whilst enjoying a wide discretion, subject to review by the Community judicature, regarding the choice of the ways and means of providing an official with the assistance required by the first paragraph of Article 24 of the Staff Regulations, is required to take all necessary steps to restore the good name of an official whose professional integrity has been called into question, an official who requests such assistance may confine himself to invoking the duty to provide assistance as laid down in Article 24 of the Staff Regulations without giving any further particulars, and the administration must then take the steps which are objectively necessary and appropriate.

5. While the administration enjoys a wide discretion regarding the choice of the ways and means of implementing Article 24 of the Staff Regulations, it must, where there are serious and unfounded accusations concerning the professional integrity of an official in carrying out his duties, refute those accusations and do everything possible to restore the good name of the official concerned.

In a case involving the public and personal defamation of an official, the administration may not confine itself to defending the official concerned indirectly, by means of a defence of the work in which he is involved, and to seeking, unsuccessfully, on the basis of the right of reply, a rectification by the newspaper which published the defamation. It must defend its official publicly and by name, and cannot make its action dependent on the official' s having first instituted proceedings on his own initiative against the author of the attack on him. In refraining from doing so, it commits a breach of its obligations under the above mentioned article and a service-related fault.

6. The non-material damage suffered by an official through a service-related fault of a nature such as to cause the administration to incur liability entitles him to damages where, having regard to the circumstances of the case, neither an express declaration of the fault in the operative part of the judgment nor the publication of that part of the judgment in the Official Journal of the European Communities are sufficient to compensate him fully.