JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(First Chamber)

10 November 2009

Case F-93/08

N

v

European Parliament

(Civil service – Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Actions for annulment – Admissibility – Statement of reasons – Manifest error of assessment – Fixing of objectives)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which N seeks, in particular, annulment of the decision of the Secretary-General of the Parliament of 4 March 2008 definitively adopting his periodical report for the period from 1 January to 30 April 2007, and of the decision of the President of the Parliament of 25 September 2008 rejecting his complaint against that periodical report.

Held: The action is dismissed. The applicant is ordered to bear all the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Actions – Interest in bringing proceedings – Action for annulment of a staff report – Official reassigned to another institution – Report not taken into consideration by that institution

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Obligation to bring to the attention of the official concerned the document fixing the objectives assigned to his department

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

1.      Irrespective of its future usefulness, an official’s staff report constitutes written, formal evidence of the quality of the work carried out by the person concerned. Such an appraisal does not merely describe the tasks performed during the relevant period, but also includes an assessment of the personal qualities shown by the individual assessed in the conduct of his professional life. Therefore, every official has a right to have his work recognised by means of an appraisal carried out in a just and equitable manner. Consequently, in accordance with the right to effective judicial protection, officials must in any event be acknowledged as having the right to challenge their staff report on account of its content or because it has not been drawn up in accordance with the rules laid down by the Staff Regulations.

Thus the reassignment of an official from one institution to another institution, the second institution’s failure to take into consideration the staff reports drawn up by the first, and the promotion of the official within the second institution are not such as to remove his interest in bringing proceedings against a definitive staff report drawn up by the first of the institutions.

(see paras 46-47)

See:

C-198/07 P Gordon v Commission [2008] ECR I‑10701, paras 44 and 45

2.      It follows from Articles 10 to 12 of the general implementing provisions for Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, adopted by the Parliament, that that institution must give each of its officials or other staff, at the assessment interview, a copy of a document setting out the objectives assigned to his directorate, unit or department for the coming year. That document constitutes a vital element in the assessment of the official’s or staff member’s performance the following year and in the drawing up of his staff report. Furthermore, where the official or staff member so requests at the assessment interview, the administration must draw up a document providing further details of his own personal objectives.

An official must be regarded as aware of the objectives assigned for the year to come where, at a general meeting, the head of unit has defined the general objectives of the directorate, the specific objectives of his unit or department, and the individual objectives of the various officials, and where a table defining, for each official or other staff member, the tasks and objectives for the year to come has been circulated and discussed. Where, in such a case, the table, in the light of its content and the standardised nature of the wording used, mainly sets out the tasks to be fulfilled rather than fixing objectives, it nevertheless gives the officials and other staff concerned a number of guidelines and goals to be achieved and may, therefore, be regarded as a presentation of objectives within the meaning of the general implementing provisions.

(see paras 64, 66)