CELEX: 62007FJ0139
Language: en
Date: 2009-09-10 00:00:00
Title: Judgment of the Civil Service Tribunal (Second Chamber) of 10 September 2009.#Rinse van Arum v European Parliament.#Case F-139/07.

JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL 
      (Second Chamber)
      10 September 2009 
      Case F-139/07
      Rinse van Arum
      v
      European Parliament
      (Civil service – Officials – Appraisal – Staff report – Scope of the complaint referred to in Article 90 of the Staff Regulations)
      Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr van Arum seeks, first, primarily, the removal of certain comments from
         his staff report for the 2005 reporting period and the addition of other elements, as well as, alternatively, the annulment
         of that report, then, as a further alternative, an order that all evidence relating to the content of that staff report be
         disclosed to him and that the Tribunal rule on the contested facts and marking raised by him, and secondly, an order that
         the Parliament pay him one euro in compensation.
      
      Held: The action is dismissed. Each party is to bear its own costs.
      
      Summary
      1.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Obligation to state reasons – Obligation for the first reporting officer to
            state the reasons for his observations or assessments – None
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      2.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Adoption of a decision allocating merit points without a final version of the
            staff report
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      3.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Judicial review
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      4.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Obligation to state reasons – Scope
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 43)
      5.      Officials – Personal file – Obligation to notify the official of the decision to add his staff report to his personal file
      (Staff Regulations, Art. 26)
      6.      Procedure – Costs – Application for an appropriate order
      (Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 87(1))
      1.      It is the staff report and, consequently, the final assessments given in that report which are likely adversely to affect
         an official and for which a statement of reasons must therefore be given, and not the comments or assessments formulated more
         particularly by the first reporting officer. Thus any absence of a statement of reasons by the Staff Reports Committee cannot
         be such as to render that staff report unlawful.
      
      (see para. 44)
      See:
      T-110/04 Sequeira Wandschneider v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I‑A‑2‑0000 and II‑A‑2‑0000, para. 108
      
      2.      Where the appointing authority adopts a decision allocating merit points when it does not yet have the final version of an
         official’s staff report solely because that official has lodged an internal appeal, that decision is, by implication, taken
         subject to the final outcome of the reporting procedure once all remedies have been exhausted. It is therefore possible for
         the administration to alter the number of merit points allocated to an official should it become apparent that, following
         his internal appeal or, as the case may be, his complaint, his staff report must be amended. The fact that a decision allocating
         merit points was adopted before the staff report became final is not sufficient to presume that that decision influenced the
         outcome of the internal appeal and, consequently, the staff report, since the decision allocating the merit points, which
         was necessarily adopted subject to the final outcome of the reporting procedure, could have been changed if the final staff
         report had been different from the provisional version.
      
      (see paras 47-48)
      See:
      F‑47/07 Behmer v Parliament [2009] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑0000 and II‑A‑1‑0000, paras 78 and 79
      
      3.      The staff report expresses the opinion freely drawn up of the reporting officers. Those assessments are therefore, by their
         nature, not amenable to objective verification by the Community judicature, which should not substitute its assessment for
         that of the persons responsible for appraising the work of the person reported on. The Community institutions have a wide
         discretion to assess the work of their officials. The value judgments made of officials in the staff reports are not subject
         to judicial review, except as regards any formal irregularities, manifest errors invalidating the assessments made by the
         reporting officer, or any misuse of powers. The appointing authority also may not substitute its assessment for that of the
         reporting officers responsible for appraising the work of an official, since the appointing authority does not necessarily
         know, any more than the Community judicature, the precise situation of each official. Consequently the appointing authority’s
         review of the reporting officers’ assessments of the officials reported on may be confined to establishing whether there has
         been any manifest error. The appointing authority cannot accordingly be criticised for not having substituted, in the pre-litigation
         procedure, its own assessment of the applicant’s performance for that of the reporting officer, replied to all the points
         disputed by the applicant and examined all his legal arguments.
      
      (see paras 56, 62)
      See:
      6/79 and 97/79 Grassi v Council [1980] ECR 2141, para. 15
      
      T-18/93 Marcato v Commission [1994] ECR-SC I‑A‑215 and II‑681, para. 45; T-179/02 Pflugradt v ECB [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑149 and II‑733, para. 46; T-285/04 Andrieu v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑2‑161 and II‑A‑2‑775, para. 99; T-249/04 Combescot v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I‑A‑2‑0000 and II‑A‑2‑0000, para. 78
      
      4.      The statement of reasons for a staff report is given, as a general rule, in the various sections relating to ability, efficiency
         and conduct in the service. However, reasoning for a staff report may also be evident from details provided by the administration
         outside the report itself, particularly in the course of an internal pre-litigation procedure specifically for the reporting
         procedure. A staff report must be regarded as containing a sufficient statement of reasons, despite the possible removal of
         certain comments which were included in the preliminary version of that report, if the applicant has been able to assess whether
         the overall appraisal of his performance by the reporting officers was well founded.
      
      Furthermore, Article 43 of the Staff Regulations does not say anything about any duty to provide factual elements to support
         the comments in a staff report. On the contrary, the reporting officer has a wide discretion to assess the work of those reported
         on. The existence of that discretion presupposes that the reporting officers are not obliged to include in the staff report
         all the relevant factual and legal elements supporting their assessment, or to consider and reply to all the points disputed
         by the person reported on. That finding is not called into question by the existence of a staff reports guide containing mandatory
         rules which the administration imposed on itself and with which it must comply. The rule laid down in that guide that the
         assessment of the excellence or inadequacy of the performance of the person reported on must be accompanied by factual comments
         is not infringed where the reporting officer, having considered the person’s performance to be neither particularly excellent
         nor particularly inadequate, has not included such comments.
      
      (see paras 80, 82, 88-91, 96)
      See:
      T-1/91 Della Pietra v Commission [1992] ECR II‑2145, para. 32; Marcato v Commission, para. 45; T-380/94 AIUFFASS and AKT v Commission [1996] ECR II‑2169, para. 57; Pflugradt v ECB, para. 46; T-258/03 Mausolf v Europol [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑45 and II‑189, para. 25; T-193/03 Piro v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑121 and II‑547, para. 59; T-50/04 Micha v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑339 and II‑1499, para. 36 and the case-law cited therein, and paras 39 and 40
      
      5.      The sole purpose of Article 26 of the Staff Regulations is to enable an official to submit his comments on all documents relating
         to his administrative status and all reports relating to his ability, efficiency and conduct. Thus, where the administration
         has sent an official his staff report prior to placing it in his file and the official concerned has been given an opportunity
         to have his comments included, there cannot be a finding of an infringement of Article 26 of the Staff Regulations. Furthermore,
         although Article 26 of the Staff Regulations requires the administration to inform the official of the content of the document
         to be put on file, it is not required to notify him of the decision to place the document on file itself.
      
      (see paras 133-135)
      See:
      T-78/96 and T-170/96 W v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I‑A‑239 and II‑745, para. 99; T-77/99 Ojha v Commission [2001] ECR-SC I‑A‑61 and II‑293, paras 56 to 61; T‑155/03, T‑157/03 and T‑331/03 Cwik v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑411 and II‑1865, paras 50 to 52 and 73
      
      6.      Under Article 87(1) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, the unsuccessful party is to be ordered to pay
         the costs if they have been applied for in the successful party’s pleadings. An application made in those pleadings for an
         appropriate order as to costs cannot be regarded as an application for the unsuccessful party to be ordered to pay the costs.
      
      (see paras 146, 148)
      See:
      C-30/91 P Lestelle v Commission [1992] ECR I‑3755, para. 38; C-470/00 P Parliament v Ripa di Meana and Others [2004] ECR I‑4167, para. 86
      
      F‑141/07 Maniscalco v Commission [2008] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑0000 and II‑A‑1‑0000, paras 30 to 33