JUDGMENT OF THE COURT OF FIRST INSTANCE (First Chamber)

20 November 2007

Case T-103/05

P

v

Commission of the European Communities

(Officials – Remuneration – Unauthorised absence – Loss of the benefit of remuneration – Article 59 of the Staff Regulations – Medical certificate)

Application: for annulment of the Commission’s decision of 10 May 2004 declaring the applicant’s absence improper from 16 March 2004 and suspending payment of her salary from 15 April 2004 until the date on which she commenced performing her duties at the DG Press and Communication in Brussels.

Held: The application is dismissed. Each party is to bear its own costs.

Summary

1.      Officials – Decision adversely affecting an official – Decision declaring an official’s absence unauthorised in the light of the outcome of a medical examination – Obligation to state the reasons on which the decision is based – Scope

(Staff Regulations, Art. 25, second para.)

2.      Officials – Sick leave – Proof of sickness – Medical officer’s examination – Finding that official is able to work – Effect

(Staff Regulations, Arts 59 and 60)

1.      The reasons given for a decision are sufficient if the measure against which the action is brought was adopted in circumstances known to the official concerned which enable him to understand the scope of the measure concerning him. That is the case of a decision declaring unauthorised the absence of an official who has not returned to work even though he was judged, following a medical examination, to be able to work half-time following a period of sick leave, if that decision, while not containing a detailed statement of reasons relating to the official’s ability to work, refers to an attached note from the Medical Service setting out the history of his illness, and, in addition, if it falls within a context where the administration’s intention was to protect the official’s interests by allowing him to return to work gradually.

(see paras 35-36, 38)

See: 791/79 Demont v Commission [1981] ECR 3105, para. 12; C‑116/88 and C‑149/88 Hecq v Commission [1990] ECR I‑599, para. 26; C‑294/95 P Ojha v Commission [1996] ECR I‑5863, para. 35; T‑98/96 Costacurta v Commission [1998] ECR-SC I‑A‑21 and II‑49, para. 86

2.      An official cannot avoid the obligation to return to work which results from a medical examination establishing that he is able to work, by producing a medical certificate which refers to his ongoing medical treatment but does not state that he has been unable to work, and therefore does not mention the dates on which that incapacity started and ended. Such a document cannot, under any circumstances, constitute a certificate showing with sufficient clarity and beyond all argument the official’s incapacity for work.

(see paras 61-63)

See: T‑135/95 Z v Commission [1996] ECR-SC I‑A‑519 and II‑1413, para. 34; T‑169/95 Quijano v Parliament [1997] ECR-SC I‑A‑91 and II‑273, para. 40