JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL (Second Chamber)

13 December 2007

Case F-95/05

N

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Civil service – Members of the temporary staff – Recruitment – Post of head of administration – Non-member country – Unfavourable opinion of the medical service)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which the applicant essentially seeks, first, annulment of the decision of the Director of Directorate K ‘External Service’ of Directorate-General ‘External Relations’ of the Commission of 15 April 2005 informing her that she would not be recruited as head of administration of the Commission delegation in Guinea, and, secondly, an order that the Commission pay her compensation for the material and non-material damage allegedly suffered.

Held: The decision of the Director of Directorate K ‘External Service’ of the Directorate-General for External Relations of the Commission of 15 April 2005 informing the applicant that she would not be recruited as head of administration of the Commission delegation in Guinea is annulled. The remainder of the action is dismissed. The Commission is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Recruitment – Physical fitness – Observance of the right to a fair hearing

(Staff Regulations, Art. 33, second para.; Conditions of Employment of Other Servants, Art. 13)

2.      Procedure – Application initiating proceedings – Formal requirements

(Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance, Art. 44(1)(c))

1.      In a recruitment procedure, a procedure for drawing up the medical opinion which does not guarantee that the opinion of a doctor chosen by the candidate in question will be taken into account when the final medical opinion is drawn up is at variance with the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 33 of the Staff Regulations, which, given its aim of guaranteeing observance of the right to a fair hearing and in the absence of provisions laying down a separate procedure or of other relevant grounds, is applicable to temporary staff posted to a third country.

(see paras 70, 76)

2.      Under the terms of Article 44(1)(c) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of First Instance an application must, inter alia, state the subject-matter of the proceedings and give a summary of the pleas in law on which it is based. In order to satisfy those requirements, an application for compensation for damage caused by a Community institution must contain information identifying the conduct which the applicant alleges against the institution, the reasons why he considers there to be a causal link between the conduct and the harm he claims to have suffered, and the nature and extent of that harm. A claim for any unspecified form of damages, on the other hand, is not sufficiently concrete and must therefore be regarded as inadmissible.

That applies where the applicant confines himself to claiming damages in compensation for harm allegedly suffered, and does not specify the amount of compensation or state the evidence enabling the extent of the harm to be determined, but without establishing or even claiming the existence of special circumstances which might have relieved the applicant of the need to provide that information.

As regards the non-material damage, regardless of whether the compensation is claimed as a symbolic reparation or in order to obtain true compensation, it is for the applicant to specify the nature of the alleged non-material damage in relation to the conduct complained of against the institution, and then to quantify, even approximately, the total of that damage.

(see paras 86-88, 90-91)

See :

5/71 Zuckerfabrik Schöppenstedt v Council [1971] ECR 975, para. 9; C-150/03 P Hectors v Parliament [2004] ECR I‑8691, para. 62

T-505/93 Osório v Commission [1994] ECR-SC I‑A‑179 and II‑581, paras 33 and 35; T-112/94 Moat v Commission [1995] ECR‑SC I‑A‑37 and II‑135, paras 32, 35, 37 and 38; T-175/04 Gordon v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-2-0000 and II-A-2-0000, paras 42 and 45