Case C-511/21 P: Appeal brought on 19 August 2021 by the European Commission against the judgment of the General Court (First Chamber) delivered on 9 June 2021 in Case T-202/17, Calhau Correia de Paiva v Commission
Date: 2021-08-19
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: administrator, competition (EU), language skills, linguistic discrimination, official language








C_2022002EN.01001601.xml










3.1.2022   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 2/16






Appeal brought on 19 August 2021 by the European Commission against the judgment of the General Court (First Chamber) delivered on 9 June 2021 in Case T-202/17, Calhau Correia de Paiva v Commission
(Case C-511/21 P)
(2022/C 2/20)
Language of the case: English

Parties


Appellant: European Commission (represented by: B. Schima, I. Melo Sampaio, L. Vernier, Agents)

Other party to the proceedings: Ana Calhau Correia de Paiva

Form of order sought

The Appellant claims that the Court should:






—


set aside the judgment under appeal;










—


dismiss the second, third and fourth pleas of the action brought by the Applicant at first instance;










—


refer the case back to the General Court to rule on the first and fifth pleas of the action brought by the Applicant at first instance, and










—


reserve the decision on the costs.





Pleas in law and main arguments

The present Appeal is directed against paragraphs 54-58 of the judgment under appeal, i.e. the part of the judgment concerning the admissibility plea of illegality raised by the Applicant against the language regime of the competition at issue.
The Commission raises a single ground of appeal, which is that the General Court erred in law by concluding that there was a close connection between the statement of reasons of the contested decision and the language regime set out in the notice of competition, thereby admitting that the plea of illegality of this language regime was admissible.
This single ground of appeal is divided in three parts:






(1)


First, the General Court made an erroneous legal qualification of the facts, at paragraph 54 of the judgment under appeal, by inferring from the mark obtained by the Applicant for the general competency ‘Communication’ a close connection between the language regime of the competition at issue and the statement of reasons of the contested decision.










(2)


Second, at paragraphs 55-57 of the judgment under appeal, the General Court made an erroneous legal qualification of the facts, by admitting the close connection on the basis of the fact that it is more difficult for a candidate to sit tests in his or her Language 2 than in his or her mother tongue. The General Court also distorted the evidence by neglecting the fact that, in the case at hand, the two other languages that the Applicant mastered the best were English and French. The limitation of the choice of the Language 2 to English, French and German thus could not cause her any disadvantage.










(3)


Third and last, at paragraph 58 of the judgment under appeal the General Court erroneoulsy qualified the facts by grounding the close connection also on the fact that the Applicant had to sit the written test with another keyboard configuration than the QWERTY-PT she is accustomed to. First, this is unrelated to the reasoning of the contested decision. Second, even if a limited choice of keyboard configurations is made available by EPSO (AZERTY, QWERTY-EN, and QWERTZ-DE), this is a distinct issue from the language regime of the competition.