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From the moment that the new Executive Secretary took up his functions at ESCWA, the Deputy Executive Secretary was no longer competent to decide, on 8 August 2007, to reassign the Applicant. Indeed, there is no documentary evidence that he had received delegation of authority from the Executive Secretary to take the contested decision, which is thus illegal. However, on 16 August 2007, the Executive Secretary confirmed the decision taken on 8 August 2007 by his Deputy. This new decision is legal but it does not have the effect of regularizing ex post facto the decision of 8 August 2007...

A single testimony reporting discriminatory statements made by an individual is insufficient to establish whether such statements were made if the accused individual denies having made such statements. From the moment that a confrontational relationship exists between a senior staff member and his/her supervisor, the Judge, without its being necessary to determine who bears a responsibility of the conflict, considers that the interest of the service requires addressing without delay the conflict and justifies the non-renewal of the staff member’s contract, unless, in the instant case, the...

In his request for review to the Secretary-General, the Applicant contested the decision not to appoint him to the post of Chief (D-1), Information and Communication Technology Division, at ESCWA. Subsequently, in his appeal to the JAB, the Applicant sought to contest several other decisions. The only decision that the Tribunal is competent to examine is the decision for which administrative review was sought. The evaluation of candidates to a post falls within the discretion of the Secretary-general and the Tribunal will not substitute its views to that of the Secretary-General. However, as...

The application was filed approximately eleven months after the period stipulated in the Statute and the Rules of Procedure of the Tribunal and was therefore deemed to be time-barred. Additionally, the Applicant failed to make any submissions on the issue of receivability thus the Tribunal concluded that this was not an exceptional case to warrant a waiver of the time limit. The UNDT concluded that the application was time-barred and therefore not receivable.

On the score of prima facie unlawfulness, the Tribunal held that the Respondent had failed to provide reasons why the decision not to renew the Applicant’s appointment was lawful. The Tribunal therefore, concluded that based on the available evidence, the contested decision was motivated by countervailing circumstances and was thus prima facie unlawful. With regard to urgency, the Tribunal found that the Applicant had acted prudently by filing her application in a timely manner. Consequently, the Tribunal held that in the circumstances, the requirement for urgency had been satisfied by the...

Locus Standi: The two decisions that the Applicant sought to challenge have no direct link to the Applicant’s own contract of employment. All the substantive issues raised in the claims relate to the terms of employment of Ms. Okuda and Mr. Alvaro-Rivero who are the two individuals with the requisite standing to challenge the decisions concerning their reassignments. Having found that the Applicant lacked the standing to lodge the claims, the Application was held not to be receivable.

The Tribunal found the Applicant’s acceptance of the implementation of the agreement, his failure to raise the allegations of duress until well after two years after the mediation and his failure to proffer any supporting evidence, can only lead to the conclusion that the Applicant’s claim of duress is devoid of any merit. Burden of proof - Where an Applicant alleges that an agreement was imposed upon him by duress, the burden lies on him or her to convince the Tribunal that such is the situation. Res Judicata - Where the subject matter of an application has been settled between parties...

The mention of the Applicant's name in several documents communicated to a number of countries in relation to an ongoing investigation had an impact on the Applicant's professional mobility. Indeed, while on official travel, the Applicant had been stopped in various airports, sometimes for several hours, and had been asked whether he had another passport in his possession. The absence of a response from OIOS over the course of its multi-year investigation was a deliberate act, if not an instance of negligence in the Administration's duty to act within a relatively reasonable time. This failure...

Receivability - Article 7.4 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure requires that any application seeking to enforce the terms of a settlement agreement must be filed within 90 calendar days of the last day for implementation as specified in the agreement and where dates for the implementation are not stated, the application must be filed within thirty calendar days of the signing of the settlement agreement.An examination of the Settlement Agreement between the parties shows that no date was stipulated for its implementation. Any application challenging it must therefore be brought within 30 days...

The failure to consider the Applicant’s e-PAS reports and to address them especially in the context of the disparity between its ratings and those of the Applicant’s reporting officers on the same competencies and within the same organization was a serious flaw in the selection process. UNDT was satisfied that the panel met its requirement of asking probing questions, even if the report reflected it as “prompting” rather than “probing.” The absence of an ex-officio member on the assessment/interview panel by itself could not vitiate the selection exercise. The Applicant’s candidacy for the...