JUDGMENT OF THE CIVIL SERVICE TRIBUNAL

(Second Chamber)

19 April 2007

Case F-9/06

Rui Canteiro Lopes

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Officials – Promotion – Consideration of comparative merits – No definitive staff report)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Canteiro Lopes seeks annulment of the Commission decision of 4 March 2005 not to add his name to the list of officials judged to be the most deserving and not to promote him to Grade A 4 in the 2000 promotion exercise.

Held: The action is dismissed. The parties are ordered to bear their own costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Reports procedure – Staff report – Drawing up

(Staff Regulations, Arts 2, first para., and 43)

2.      Officials – Promotion – Criteria

(Staff Regulations, Art. 45)

1.      Where it has not been possible to draw up an official’s staff report under normal procedural conditions because of exceptional circumstances, such as the fact that his assessor and his appeal assessor have left the institution and the directorate-general to which he was posted has been disbanded, it is consistent with the need for continuity in administrative action for the report to be drawn up by the director-general, who, under the terms of the decision adopted by the institution on the exercise of the powers conferred by the Staff Regulations on the appointing authority, has powers not specifically referred to in that decision.

(see para. 56)

2.      The assessment of the merits of the officials eligible for promotion is the decisive factor for all promotions, while the appointing authority may take candidates’ age and seniority in grade or service into consideration only as a secondary factor. However, where the merits of the officials eligible for promotion are equal, those additional criteria may rightly constitute a decisive factor in the appointing authority’s choice.

A difference of two points between the analytical assessments of two officials eligible for promotion who also belong to two different directorates-general may not be regarded as sufficiently significant, given the differences in reporting between directorates-general, to prevent other objective criteria relating to the administrative and personal situation of the officials in question from being taken into account as a secondary factor, such as seniority or the fact that they have already been included in the list of the most deserving officials in a previous exercise .

(see paras 63, 67-68)

See:

C-207/99 P Commission v Hamptaux [2000] ECR I‑9485, para. 19

T-280/94 Lopes v Court of Justice [1996] ECR-SC I‑A‑77 and II‑239, para. 138; T-221/96 Manzo-Tafaro v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I‑A‑115 and II‑307, para. 17; of 13 March 2001 in T-116/00 Hørbye-Möller v Commission, not published in the ECR, para. 39; T-163/01 Perez Escanilla v Commission [2002] ECR-SC I‑A‑131 and II‑717, para. 29; T-134/02 Tejada Fernández v Commission [2003] ECR-SC I‑A‑125 and II‑609, para. 42; T-132/03 Casini v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑253 and II‑1169, para. 57; T-472/04 Tsarnavas v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I-A-2-000 and II-A-2-000, para. 67