ORDER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL
(Second Chamber)

17 March 2011

Case F‑107/10

AP

v

Court of Justice of the European Union

(Civil service — Lateness — Manifest inadmissibility)

Application: brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof, in which AP seeks, in particular, annulment of the decision of the Court of Justice of 17 December 2009 recognising his entitlement to the household allowance from 1 July 2009 but granting him that allowance only from 1 November 2009, an order that the institution pay him an amount equivalent to the household allowances for the period from 1 July 2009 to 31 October 2009 plus interest, and, in the alternative, an order that the institution compensate him for his financial and non‑material damage.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible. The applicant is to bear his own costs.

Summary

Officials — Actions — Prior administrative complaint — Time-limits — Mandatory

(Staff Regulations, Arts 90 and 91; Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, Art. 100(3))

The periods for lodging complaints and bringing actions referred to in Articles 90 and 91 of the Staff Regulations are matters of public policy and cannot be left to the discretion of the parties or the Court, which must ascertain, of its own motion if need be, whether they have been complied with.

It is for the parties to exercise due care and attention in order to comply with the time-limits laid down by the applicable rules. Consequently, while the applicant is entitled to use the whole period for bringing an action provided for in Article 100(3) of the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, that option runs the risk, however, that his action will be ruled inadmissible if the original of the application is lodged with the Tribunal after the time allotted, for reasons which have nothing to do with unforeseeable circumstances or force majeure.

(see paras 5, 9)

See:

29 June 2000, C‑154/99 P Politi v European Training Foundation, para. 15; 8 November 2007, C‑242/07 P Belgium v Commission, para. 17

15 January 2009, T‑306/08 P Braun-Neumann v Parliament, para. 36; 12 October 2009, T‑283/09 P Aayhan and Others v Parliament, para. 19

12 May 2010, F‑13/09 Peláez Jimeno v Parliament, para. 18