JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL
(Single Judge)

29 April 2015

Case F‑17/14

Carlos Ibáñez Martínez

v

European Parliament

(Civil service — Officials — Award of merit points — Opinion of the Reports Committee — Wide discretion of the administration — Equal treatment)

Application:      under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, in which Mr Ibáñez Martínez seeks annulment of the decision of the European Parliament to award him two merit points in the 2012 promotion year, in so far as that decision does not award him a third merit point.

Held:      The action is dismissed. Mr Ibáñez Martínez is to bear his own costs and is ordered to pay the costs incurred by the European Parliament.

Summary

Officials — Promotion — Consideration of comparative merits — Administration’s discretion — Judicial review — Limits — Manifest error of assessment — Concept

(Staff Regulations, Art. 45)

The administration has a wide discretion when assessing the merits to be taken into consideration in a promotion decision under Article 45 of the Staff Regulations, and the same consequently applies to a decision to award merit points. Review by the Courts of the Union must therefore be limited to ascertaining whether, regard being had to the factors and reasons that led the administration to its assessment, it remained within unimpeachable limits and did not manifestly misuse its power.

In order to establish that the administration committed a manifest error in assessing the facts such as to justify the annulment of a decision, the evidence, which it is for the applicant to adduce, must be sufficient to make the findings of the competent authority implausible. In other words, a plea alleging a manifest error must be rejected if, despite the evidence adduced by the official concerned, the contested assessment may still be accepted as true or valid. As regards promotion, an error may thus be classified as manifest where it is easily recognisable and can be readily detected, in the light of the criteria to which the legislature intended promotion decisions to be subject.

In that regard, the administration enjoys a wide discretion as to the respective importance which it ascribes to each of the three criteria provided for in Article 45(1) of the Staff Regulations, the provisions of which do not preclude the possibility of weighting being applied between those criteria.

(see paras 42-44)

See:

Judgment in Canga Fano v Council, T‑281/11 P, EU:T:2013:252, para. 123

Judgments in Collee v Parliament, F‑148/06, EU:F:2008:169, paras 39 and 40; Canga Fano v Council, F‑104/09, EU:F:2011:29, para. 35; Buxton v Parliament, F‑50/11, EU:F:2012:51, paras 37 and 38, and Bouillez v Council, F‑75/11, EU:F:2012:152, para. 58