Judgment No. 2456
Decision
1. The impugned decision is set aside.
2. The Organisation shall pay the complainant the full balance of salary and all benefits to which he would have been entitled if he had received a one-year extension of his contract to 14 June 2005, subject to the deduction of any earnings from other employment, as indicated under consideration 11.
3. It shall pay him moral damages in the amount of 15,000 euros.
4. It shall also pay him 10,000 euros in costs.
Considerations 9 and 11
Extract:
The complainant joined the Organisation in January 1998 under a fixed-term appointment. His contract, which was extended in 2003, was due to expire on 14 June 2004; it was not renewed due to the implementation of the seven-year tenure rule. He has produced before the Tribunal a document signed by the Director-General containing data about his performance, in which his date of entry on duty was incorrectly shown as 24 May 1997. He contends that the Director-General relied on that data in deciding not to renew his contract. "Since in the implementation of its policy the Organisation was said to be applying a 'first in, first out' rule, an error of over seven months in the calculation of any employee's length of service may be of critical importance. That is especially the case where such apparent error has the effect of indicating wrongly that the employee would at the time of his separation from the Organisation have served more than seven years. The Tribunal considers the alleged errors of fact to be material. [...] The non-renewal decision must be set aside and the Organisation shall be ordered to pay to the complainant the full balance of salary and benefits to which he would have been entitled if he had received a one-year extension of his contract to 14 June 2005. The complainant must account for any earnings from other employment during that period."
Keywords
decision; general principle; organisation's duties; written rule; enforcement; reckoning; period; contract; appointment; extension of contract; duration of appointment; fixed-term; salary; allowance; non-renewal of contract; staff member's duties; mistake of fact; consequence; date; right; official
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