JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (Third Chamber)

28 November 2007

Case T-214/05

Hippocrate Vounakis

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Officials – Career development report – 2003 appraisal – Definition of goals to achieve – Duty to state reasons – Inconsistency between points and comments – Manifest error of assessment)

Application: for annulment of the Commission decision of 13 July 2004 adopting the applicant’s definitive career development report for the period from 1 January to 31 December 2003.

Held: The decision of 13 July 2004 adopting the career development report in respect of Mr Hippocrate Vounakis for the period from 1 January until 31 December 2003 is annulled as far as concerns the heading ‘Productivity’. The remainder of the action is dismissed. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report – Duty to fix goals to be achieved

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Assessors’ discretion – Judicial review – Limits

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

3.      Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report – Obligation to state reasons – Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

4.      Officials – Reports procedure – Career development report – Self-appraisal by the official – Purpose

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

1.      It is clear from Article 7(1) 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 a post. That duty is reiterated in the guide to appraisal which the Commission has adopted as a code of conduct.

(see para. 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‑296/01 Tatti v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑225 and II‑1093, para. 43

2.      Assessors enjoy a very wide discretion when judging the work of persons upon whom they must report. It is not for the Community judicature, save in the case of errors as to the facts, manifest error of assessment or misuse of powers, to review the merits of the assessment made of the occupational abilities of an official, where it involves complex value judgments which, by their very nature, are not amenable to objective verification.

(see para. 62)

See: T‑278/01 den Hamer v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑139 and II‑665, para. 58; T-165/04 Vounakis v Commission [2006] ECR‑SC I-A-2-155 and II-A-2-735, para. 61

3.      The administration is obliged to state in a sufficient and detailed manner the reasons on which the staff report is based. The general comments accompanying the analytical assessments must enable the official reported on to assess the validity of those assessments with full knowledge of the facts and, where appropriate, must enable the Court to carry out its review, and it is important, to that end, for there to be consistency between the assessments and the comments justifying them.

Moreover, in certain cases particular care must be taken with that statement of reasons. The career development report must state special reasons where the assessor intends not to follow the recommendations of the Joint Evaluation Committee and where the opinion mentions special circumstances likely to cast doubt on the validity or proper foundation of the original assessment and therefore calls for a specific assessment from the appeal assessor as to any appropriate conclusions to be drawn from those circumstances.

(see paras 63, 83)

See: T‑23/91 Maurissen v Court of Auditors [1992] ECR II‑2377, para. 41; T‑187/01 Mellone v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I‑A‑81 and II‑389, para. 27 and the case-law cited therein; T‑16/03 Ferrer de Moncada v Commission [2004] ECR-SC I‑A‑261 and II‑1163, para. 50 and the case-law cited therein; Vounakis v Commission, para. 84

4.      Under Article 7(4) of the General Provisions for Implementing Article 43 of the Staff Regulations adopted by the Commission, the purpose of self‑appraisal is to prepare the formal interview between the reporting officer and the official. Consequently, it is not for the official to report on himself; the report is the responsibility of the reporting officer, the countersigning officer and the appeal assessor.

(see para. 81)