ORDER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (First Chamber)

12 July 2007

Case F-143/06

Donato Continolo

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Pensions – Transfer of pension rights – Manifest inadmissibility)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Continolo seeks annulment of the Commission’s decision of 3 January 2006 on the award and calculation of his pension rights, in so far as, for the period he spent on leave on personal grounds from 11 June 1981 to 1 March 1983, it takes into account, for the calculation of those rights, only one year, five months and six days instead of one year, eight months and twenty days, as well as annulment of the appointing authority’s decision of 5 September 2006 rejecting his complaint against the abovementioned decision of 3 January 2006.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. The parties are to bear their own costs.

Summary

Officials – Actions – Prior administrative complaint – Same subject-matter and legal basis

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91)

Under Article 91(2) of the Staff Regulations, an appeal is admissible only if the appointing authority has previously had a complaint submitted to it pursuant to Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations against the act adversely affecting the official concerned within the period of three months provided for in that article.

An appeal by an official against a decision of the administration fixing his pension rights is inadmissible where the prior complaint was lodged against a subsequent decision of the administration rejecting his application to contribute retroactively to the Community pension scheme. The appeal, in so far as it is directed against the first decision, was not preceded by a prior complaint with the same subject-matter and thus does not satisfy the requirement laid down in Article 91(2) of the Staff Regulations. Furthermore, even if the complaint, in so far as it relates to the administration’s calculation of the applicant’s pension rights, may be regarded as also calling into question the legality of the first decision and can therefore be deemed to have been lodged against that decision secondarily, it should have been submitted within the period laid down in the Staff Regulations.

(see paras 18, 22-24)