CELEX: 62008FJ0093
Language: en
Date: 2009-11-10
Title: Judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal (First Chamber) of 10 November 2009. # N v European Parliament. # Public service - Officials - Staff report - Action for annulment - Admissibility - Statement of reasons. # Case F-93/08.

JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL 
      (First Chamber)
      10 November 2009 
      Case F-93/08
      N
      v
      European Parliament
      (Civil service – Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Actions for annulment – Admissibility – Statement of reasons – Manifest error of assessment – Fixing of objectives)
      Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which N seeks, in particular, annulment of the decision of the Secretary-General
         of the Parliament of 4 March 2008 definitively adopting his periodical report for the period from 1 January to 30 April 2007,
         and of the decision of the President of the Parliament of 25 September 2008 rejecting his complaint against that periodical
         report.
      
      Held: The action is dismissed. The applicant is ordered to bear all the costs.
      
      Summary
      1.      Officials – Actions – Interest in bringing proceedings – Action for annulment of a staff report – Official reassigned to another
            institution – Report not taken into consideration by that institution 
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      2.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Obligation to bring to the attention of the official concerned the document
            fixing the objectives assigned to his department 
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      1.      Irrespective of its future usefulness, an official’s staff report constitutes written, formal evidence of the quality of the
         work carried out by the person concerned. Such an appraisal does not merely describe the tasks performed during the relevant
         period, but also includes an assessment of the personal qualities shown by the individual assessed in the conduct of his professional
         life. Therefore, every official has a right to have his work recognised by means of an appraisal carried out in a just and
         equitable manner. Consequently, in accordance with the right to effective judicial protection, officials must in any event
         be acknowledged as having the right to challenge their staff report on account of its content or because it has not been drawn
         up in accordance with the rules laid down by the Staff Regulations.
      
      Thus the reassignment of an official from one institution to another institution, the second institution’s failure to take
         into consideration the staff reports drawn up by the first, and the promotion of the official within the second institution
         are not such as to remove his interest in bringing proceedings against a definitive staff report drawn up by the first of
         the institutions.
      
      (see paras 46-47)
      See:
      C-198/07 P Gordon v Commission [2008] ECR I‑10701, paras 44 and 45 
      
      2.      It follows from Articles 10 to 12 of the general implementing provisions for Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, adopted
         by the Parliament, that that institution must give each of its officials or other staff, at the assessment interview, a copy
         of a document setting out the objectives assigned to his directorate, unit or department for the coming year. That document
         constitutes a vital element in the assessment of the official’s or staff member’s performance the following year and in the
         drawing up of his staff report. Furthermore, where the official or staff member so requests at the assessment interview, the
         administration must draw up a document providing further details of his own personal objectives. 
      
      An official must be regarded as aware of the objectives assigned for the year to come where, at a general meeting, the head
         of unit has defined the general objectives of the directorate, the specific objectives of his unit or department, and the
         individual objectives of the various officials, and where a table defining, for each official or other staff member, the tasks
         and objectives for the year to come has been circulated and discussed. Where, in such a case, the table, in the light of its
         content and the standardised nature of the wording used, mainly sets out the tasks to be fulfilled rather than fixing objectives,
         it nevertheless gives the officials and other staff concerned a number of guidelines and goals to be achieved and may, therefore,
         be regarded as a presentation of objectives within the meaning of the general implementing provisions.
      
      (see paras 64, 66)