Language of document : ECLI:EU:F:2015:68

ORDER OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECOND CHAMBER OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

25 June 2015 (*)

(Intervention — Belated application — Submission of oral observations at the hearing — Rejection)

In Case F‑86/14,

ACTION brought under Article 270 TFEU, applicable to the EAEC Treaty pursuant to Article 106a thereof,

Andrea Janoha, member of the contract staff of the European Commission, residing in Christ Church (Barbados), and the other applicants whose names are set out in the annex, represented by O. Mader, lawyer,

applicants,

v

European Commission, represented by J. Currall and G. Gattinara, acting as Agents,

defendant,

supported by

Council of the European Union, represented by M. Bauer and M. Veiga, acting as Agents,

intervener,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECOND CHAMBER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

makes the following

Order

1        By application received at the Tribunal Registry on 1 September 2014, Mr Janoha and five other applicants whose names appear in the annex seek, in essence, annulment of the decisions by which the European Commission reduced their annual leave entitlement under the second paragraph of Article 6 of Annex X to the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union, in the version thereof resulting from Regulation (EU, Euratom) No 1023/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 October 2013 amending the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Union.

2        By letter received at the Registry of the Tribunal on 10 February 2015, the European Parliament sought leave to intervene in the present case in support of the form of order sought by the Commission. However, the Parliament pointed out that, given the expiry of the six-week period provided for in Article 86(1) of the Rules of Procedure, it was seeking leave to present its observations at the hearing, by analogy with Article 116(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the European Union Civil Service Tribunal.

3        In accordance with Article 87(1) of the Rules of Procedure, the application to intervene was served on the main parties and to the Council of the European Union, intervener, so as to permit them to submit observations.

4        By letter received at the Registry of the Tribunal on 2 March 2015, supplemented by a letter received at the Registry of the Tribunal on 4 March 2015, the Commission observed that, in its view, the Parliament was not seeking leave to intervene in writing, as the deadline laid down in Article 86(1) of the Rules of Procedure had expired, but that if it had done or intended to do so, the Commission would have supported or would support its application, in particular because the Parliament is co-legislator and, in those circumstances, the Commission suggested that the Tribunal use its broad discretion on that issue to allow the intervention of Parliament. The Commission added that, in the absence of any provision in the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure allowing intervention at the hearing only, it would be better to consider the Parliament’s application for leave to intervene to have been made in writing and to grant such leave under the discretion enjoyed by the Tribunal.

5        By letter received at the Tribunal Registry on 6 March 2015, the applicants noted that Parliament’s application had been brought after the expiry of the period of six weeks provided for in Article 86(1) of the Rules of Procedure. Moreover, there was no provision in the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure similar to Article 116(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court. Consequently, the applicants claimed that the Tribunal should dismiss the application for leave to intervene.

 Law

6        In the first place, the Tribunal notes that, under Article 86(1) of its Rules of Procedure, any application for leave to intervene must be made before the expiry of a period of six weeks commencing with the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union of the notice of initiation of the action, as provided for in Article 51(2) of the Rules of Procedure. In the present case, as that notice was published in the Official Journal of the European Union on 3 November 2014, the period of six weeks, extended on account of distance by a single period of 10 days, expired on 26 December 2014, as 25 December was an official holiday.

7        In the second place, the time-limit provided for in Article 86(1) of the Rules of Procedure must be regarded as a mandatory time-limit, so that the Tribunal has no discretion regarding its application to the present case. The provisions relating to procedural time-limits must be strictly applied in order to comply with the requirements of legal certainty and the need to avoid any discrimination or arbitrary treatment in the administration of justice (see, inter alia, judgment of 12 July 1984, Ferriera Valsabbia v Commission, 209/83, EU:C:1984:274, paragraph 14, and order of 28 April 2005 in Microsoft v Commission, T‑201/04, EU:T:2005:149, paragraph 47).

8        In the third place, the Tribunal observes that its Rules of Procedure contain no provision similar to that in Article 116(6) of the Rules of Procedure of the General Court which provides that, if the application for leave to intervene was made after the expiry of the specified period, the intervener may nevertheless, on the basis of the Report for the Hearing communicated to him, submit his observations during the oral procedure.

9        Therefore, as the Parliament’s application for leave to intervene was made after the time-limit prescribed in Article 86(1) of the Rules of Procedure, and nothing in those rules allows, in such a case, for the submission of observations at the hearing, that application must be dismissed as inadmissible.

 Costs

10      Under Article 101 of the Rules of Procedure, the unsuccessful party is to bear his own costs and is to be ordered to pay the costs incurred by the other party if they have been applied for in the other party’s pleadings. Since the Parliament has been unsuccessful in its application for leave to intervene but no party has sought an order for costs against it, it must be ordered to bear its own costs.

On those grounds,

THE PRESIDENT OF THE SECOND CHAMBER OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

hereby orders:

1.      The application of the European Parliament for leave to intervene is dismissed as inadmissible.

2.      The European Parliament shall bear its own costs.

Luxembourg, 25 June 2015.

W. Hakenberg

 

      K. Bradley

Registrar

 

      President

ANNEX

Pablo Isla Villar, residing in Ivandry (Madagascar),

Nicole Malpas, residing in Dhaka (Bangladesh),

Francesco Torcoli, residing in Accra (Ghana),

Piero Valabrega, residing in Bissau (Guinea-Bissau),

Stefano Varriale, residing in Pretoria (South Africa).


* Language of the case: English.