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UNAT considered an appeal of judgment No. UNDT/2013/151 by the Secretary-General. As a preliminary matter, UNAT held that UNDT made an error of law in breaching the confidentiality of a letter and Note to File previously ordered to be kept confidential and UNAT granted the Secretary-General’s motion to redact those paragraphs of the impugned judgment. UNAT held that UNDT made several errors of law: (1) by reviewing de novo the impugned decision; (2) by failing to recognise, respect and abide by UNAT jurisprudence; and (3) by finding that the surrounding circumstances created an implied promise...

Admissibility: The parameters of what is admissible before this court is provided for in Article 18 of the UNDT Rules of Procedure. In relevant part, the Article states that the Tribunal shall determine the admissibility of any evidence; and that it may exclude evidence which it considers irrelevant, frivolous or lacking in probative value. Workplan/EPAS: It is the responsibility of the first reporting officer to set out the work plan with the Applicant; to conduct the mid-point review and the final appraisal; and to provide supervision on the overall work of the Applicant during the course...

The Applicant did not actively or diligently pursue his case because: he failed to give instructions to his Counsel in respect to his challenge against the non-renewal of his fixed-term appointment; he had been informed about the Status Conference by his Counsel and had failed to make an appearance or to contact the Tribunal to give reasons for his absence; his Counsel had advised that as far as she was concerned, the substantive matter in the application had been resolved; and from the documents tendered by the Respondent, the Tribunal was convinced that the substantive matter in the...

UNDT noted that a request for suspension of action can only be granted in cases where all criteria have been satisfied: prima facie unlawfulness, urgency, and irreparable damage. UNDT held that the contested decision in the present case did not appear to be prima facie unlawful. UNDT accordingly did not further examine whether the matter was urgent and/or whether the implementation of the contested decision would cause irreparable damage. UNDT also held that the decision of non-renewal was not an improper exercise of discretion. UNDT held that there was no evidence that the non-renewal...

The mandate of UNDT is confined to the review of administrative decisions. Although the definition of this term may be disputed, it is beyond question that administrative decisions must by essence be taken by the Administration. Since the decisions of former UNAT are judicial decisions, they cannot be contested before UNDT. The provisions on transitional measures apply to pending UNAT cases only. They do not include the power to revise UNAT judgements. Cases closed by judgments of former UNAT are res iudicata.

The applicant did not have a legitimate expectancy of renewal. No express promise by the Administration could be found. Had there been one, the letters of appointment signed by the applicant explicitly state that fixed-term appointments do not carry any expectancy of renewal. No promise could override the clear words of the letters of appointment signed subsequently. It cannot be stated that the non-renewal decision was based on improper motives or otherwise constituted an abuse of discretion. The Organization was not bound to give any justification for not extending the applicant’s fixed-term...

In accordance with ST/AI/234/Rev.1, setting the normal number of working hours per week is a matter within the authority of the Executive Director of UNEP. Thus when he initially decided not to reduce the normal working hours in Paris, the Executive Director of UNEP acted within his discretionary authority. Since the applicants were legally required to work 40 hours per week from January 2006 to March 2007, their claim for 2.5 hours of overtime per week during that period is without merit. The applicants alleged discrimination, arbitrariness and bad faith on the part of the Administration in...

A respondent who neglects to take part in the proceedings by not filing a reply within 30 days of receipt of the application may be readmitted by leave of the Tribunal only. The respondent in such a case is solely and effectively excluded by his own negligence to file a reply in time. He is not excluded by the Tribunal but by the operation of law. By his preposterous claim that the Registrar and the Judge owed him a duty to remind him of his obligations to his client, the Respondent’s Counsel, sought, in the Tribunal’s view, to provide an excuse for his own incompetence and lack of diligence...

The Tribunal examined whether the two-year limitation for the recovery of the overpayment as stated in ST/AI/2009/1 applied to the case at hand. While it was undisputed that the overpayment resulted from an error on the part of the Organization, the Tribunal found that the Applicant could not seriously claim that she was unaware or that she could not reasonably have been expected to be aware of the overpayment, and it therefore concluded that the two- year limitation could not apply to her.

The Tribunal found that the provisions of ST/AI/1998/9 did not allow the reclassification of the Applicant’s post and concluded accordingly that the Applicant had no grounds for contesting the refusal to reclassify his post. The Tribunal further found that the Administration’s delays in notifying the Applicant of the reclassification decision, even though the decision was well-founded, had caused him to suffer moral damage, for which the Tribunal awarded EUR2,000.