JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

13 December 2007

Case F-42/06

Asa Sundholm

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Appraisal – Career development report – 2004 appraisal – Objectives of and criteria for appraisal – Damages)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mrs Sundholm seeks in particular annulment of her career development report for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2004, and an order that the Commission pay her the sum of one euro in compensation for the non-material harm she alleges that career development report to have caused her.

Held: The applicant’s career development report for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2004 is annulled. The remainder of the action is dismissed. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2.      Officials – Actions – Action for damages – Annulment of the illegal act in dispute – Whether appropriate reparation for non-material damage

(Staff Regulations, Art. 91)

1.      It is clear from the fourth subparagraph of Article 8(5) of the General Provisions for Implementing Article 43 of the Staff Regulations, adopted by the Commission, that the administration has a duty to set goals and assessment criteria for the holder of the post. Under that provision, the formal interview that is held between the reporting officer and the holder of the post at the start of each appraisal procedure should cover not just the appraisal of that person’s performance during the reference period, which runs from 1 January to 31 December of the year preceding that in which the procedure is conducted, but also the setting of targets for the year following the reference period, those targets constituting the reference basis for assessing his efficiency. That duty is reiterated in the guide to appraisal which the Commission has adopted as a code of conduct.

Where no goals or assessment criteria have been set for the reference period in question, the administration cannot claim that the goals assigned for the previous reference period were extended on the ground that they did not include any date when they would cease to be valid.

(see paras 31-32, 37)

See:

190/82 Blomefield v Commission [1983] ECR 3981, para. 20

T-63/89 Latham v Commission [1991] ECR II‑19, para. 25; T‑269/01 Tatti v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑225 and II‑1093, para. 43

2.      The annulment of an act of the administration which has been challenged by an official in itself constitutes appropriate and, in principle (that is to say, in the absence from that act of any expressly negative assessment of the applicant’s abilities likely to cause him damage), sufficient reparation for any non-material harm which the applicant may have suffered by reason of the annulled act.

(see para. 44)

See:

T-60/94 Pierrat v Court of Justice [1995] ECR-SC I‑A‑23 and II‑77, para. 62