Judgment No. 4655
Decision
The complaints are dismissed.
Summary
The complainants challenge the decisions rejecting their requests for redefinition of their employment relationships.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
short-term; conversion of contract; redefinition of contract; complaint dismissed
Consideration 3
Extract:
The eleven complaints essentially seek the same redress, rest on broadly similar submissions and, for the most part, raise the same legal issues. They will therefore be joined to form the subject of a single judgment.
Keywords
joinder
Consideration 15
Extract:
[T]he complainants maintain [...] that the requests for redefinition of their employment relationships cannot be considered as time-barred because they are “actions involving compensation”, their sole purpose being “to obtain redress for the injury caused by the misuse of precarious contracts”, and that actions of this type are not, as such, subject to a time limit specified in WIPO’s rules. However, the Tribunal considers this manner of presenting the cases contrived, because in a dispute involving a challenge to individual decisions, as here, compensation for injury arising from the alleged unlawfulness of those decisions could only be granted as a consequence of their being set aside, which presupposes by definition that they have been challenged within the applicable time limit. The complainants’ reference to the case law on which they consider they can base this argument, which relates to different situations, is irrelevant in the present case. Furthermore, endorsing this argument – which would, once again, involve departing from the approach taken in [...] Judgments 4159 and 4160 – would have the effect of authorising the Organization’s staff members in practice to evade the effects of the rules on time limits for filing appeals by allowing them to seek compensation at any time for injury caused to them by an individual decision, even though they did not challenge that decision in time. Such a situation would scarcely be permissible having regard to the requirement of stability of legal relations which, as the Tribunal regularly points out in its case law, is the very justification for time bars (see, for example, Judgment 3406, consideration 12, and the other judgments cited therein).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3406, 4159, 4160
Keywords
injury; time bar; compensation; conversion of contract; late appeal; redefinition of contract
Consideration 20
Extract:
According to the Tribunal’s firm precedent based on the provisions of Article VII, paragraph 1, of its Statute, the fact that the appeals lodged by the complainants were out of time renders their complaints irreceivable for failure to exhaust the internal means of redress available to staff members of the Organization, which cannot be deemed to have been exhausted unless recourse has been had to them in compliance with the formal requirements and within the prescribed time limit (see Judgments 4160, consideration 13, and 4159, consideration 11, as well as, for example, Judgments 2888, consideration 9, 2326, consideration 6, and 2010, consideration 8).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2010, 2326, 2888, 4159, 4160
Keywords
receivability of the complaint; failure to exhaust internal remedies; late appeal
Consideration 21
Extract:
[I]t should be recalled that international civil servants are entitled to expect that their cases will be considered by internal appeal bodies within a reasonable timeframe and that failure to comply with this requirement of expeditious proceedings constitutes a failing on the part of the employer organisation (see, for example, Judgment 3510, consideration 24, or Judgment 2116, consideration 11). Under the Tribunal’s case law, the amount of compensation that may be granted under this head ordinarily depends on two essential considerations, namely the length of the delay and the effect of the delay on the employee concerned (see, for example, Judgments 4635, consideration 8, 4178, consideration 15, 4100, consideration 7, or 3160, consideration 17).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2116, 3160, 3510, 4100, 4178, 4635
Keywords
moral injury; time limit; delay in internal procedure
Consideration 10
Extract:
[T]he case law [...] established by Judgments 4159 and 4160 is fully applicable to the cases of the complainants in the present proceedings, and accordingly the Organization’s objection to the receivability of all the complaints, based on the fact that the complainants’ internal appeals were time-barred, is well founded.
With regard to the eight complainants who were granted temporary contracts at the end of periods when they were employed under short-term contracts, it is clear that they did not challenge the decisions whereby they were granted these temporary contracts within the eight-week period available to them for this purpose under Staff Rule 11.1.1(b)(1), in the version applicable at the time. Moreover, examination of these contracts shows that the complainants explicitly stated when signing them that they “accept[ed] without reservation the temporary appointment[s] offered to [them]”. The requests for redefinition of their employment relationships that they subsequently submitted were therefore time-barred.
Moreover, the Tribunal notes that the approach adopted in Judgments 4159 and 4160, concerning the consequences of a failure to challenge within the applicable time limit a decision awarding a temporary employment contract at the end of a period of employment under short-term contracts, must apply a fortiori to a decision awarding a fixed-term contract at that point. The grant to some staff members, at the end of a such a period of employment, of this type of contract, which is still more fundamentally different in nature from a short-term contract, constituted a fortiori a modification of the legal relationships between the parties as well as regularising the contractual situation of the staff members in question.
However, the three complainants who were directly awarded fixed-term contracts on the expiry of renewals of their short-term contracts failed to challenge the decisions granting them these contracts within the applicable time limit for appeal and also accepted their new contracts without reservation. Consequently, they were not entitled to seek a redefinition of their employment relationships at a later date.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 4159, 4160
Keywords
fixed-term; short-term; conversion of contract; late appeal; redefinition of contract
Consideration 10
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal observes that, while the various complainants requested that the contractual redefinition apply not only to the period during which they were employed under short-term contracts but also, subsidiarily, to the subsequent period, their claims on this point are also barred by this case law. Firstly, the periods during which the complainants were employed under temporary appointments or fixed-term contracts did not in themselves necessitate a redefinition, since the complainants were lawfully employed during those periods. Secondly, since the requests for redefinition of their initial employment relationships in the form of short-term contracts are irreceivable, those requests, even if well-founded, could not in any event give rise to an entitlement to redefinition concerning the subsequent period.
Keywords
short-term; conversion of contract; late appeal; redefinition of contract
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