JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Fifth Chamber)

13 December 2007

Case T-113/05

Angel Angelidis

v

European Parliament

(Civil service – Officials – Filling an A2 post – Rejection of candidature – Breach of essential procedural requirements – Action for annulment – Action for damages)

Application: first, for annulment of the decision of the European Parliament to reject the candidature of the applicant for the post of Director of the ‘Budgetary Affairs’ Directorate of the Directorate-General for Committees responsible for the internal policies of the Parliament and to appoint another candidate to the post, and, second, for damages to compensate for the damage allegedly suffered by the applicant as a result of the rejection of his candidature.

Held: The decision of the Bureau of the European Parliament of 25 February 2004 appointing W to the position of Director of Budgetary Affairs of the Directorate-General for Committees responsible for the internal policies of the European Parliament is annulled. The remainder of the action is dismissed. The Parliament is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Vacancy – Filled by promotion or transfer – Consideration of candidates’ comparative merits

(Staff Regulations, Arts 29(1) and 45(1))

2.      Actions for annulment – Pleas in law – Breach of essential procedural requirements – To be considered of the Court’s own motion

(Art. 230, second para., EC)

1.      The appointing authority has a broad discretion when comparing the merits of candidates for transfer or promotion, in particular where the post to be filled is at a very high level, corresponding to Grade A 1 or A 2. However, that broad discretion brings with it, for the Community authority which enjoys it, the obligation to observe the guarantees conferred by the Community legal order in administrative procedures, including the obligation of examining carefully and impartially all the matters relevant to the particular case.

That discretion must therefore be exercised with scrupulous observance of the relevant regulations, in other words not just of the vacancy notice, but also of any procedural rules which the authority has adopted for the exercise of its discretion and which constitute part of the legal framework which the appointing authority must rigorously observe in exercising its broad discretion. Only in that way is the Community judicature able to ascertain whether the elements of fact and of law on which the exercise of the discretion depends were present.

(see paras 60-61)

See: C-269/90 Technische Universität München [1991] ECR I‑5469, para. 14; T‑203/97 Forvass v Commission [1999] ECR-SC I‑A‑129 and II‑705, para. 45; T‑95/01 Coget and Others v Court of Auditors [2001] ECR-SC I‑A‑191 and II‑879, para. 113; T‑158/01 Tilgenkamp v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I‑A‑111 and II‑595, para. 50; T‑73/01 Pappas v Committee of the Regions [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑207 and II‑1011, para. 53; T-88/04 Tzirani v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A-2-149 and II-A-2-703, paras 77 and 78

2.      Failure to observe procedural rules relating to the adoption of a measure, laid down by the competent institution itself, constitutes a breach of essential procedural requirements within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 230 EC, which may be considered by the Community judicature, even of its own motion. Where essential procedural requirements, which are fundamental to legal certainty, are breached, annulment of the vitiated act follows. It is of little account in that respect that the content of the vitiated act would have been the same without that defect.

A decision of the Bureau of the European Parliament appointing an official to a grade A 2 post, adopted without observing the institution’s internal rules laying down the various stages of the procedure for appointing senior officials, must therefore be annulled. That finding is not invalidated by the argument that since it laid down the procedural rules itself, Parliament’s Bureau could, if it deemed it necessary, depart from them. An institution may not depart from internal rules which it has laid down for itself without formally amending those rules.

(see paras 62, 74-76)

See: 68/86 United Kingdom v Council [1988] ECR 855, paras 48 and 49; C‑286/95 P Commission v ICI [2000] ECR I‑2341, para. 52; T‑465/93 Consorzio gruppo di azione locale Murgia Messapica v Commission [1994] ECR II‑361, para. 56; T‑228/99 and T‑233/99 Westdeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale and Land Nordrhein-Westfalen v Commission [2003] ECR II‑435, para. 143 and the case-law cited therein