JUDGMENT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION CIVIL SERVICE
(First Chamber)

2 October 2012

Case F‑52/05 RENV

Q

v

European Commission

(Civil service — Referral back to Tribunal after setting aside — Administration’s duty to provide assistance — Psychological harassment — Temporary removal from post — Compensation for non-material damage — Career development reports — Authorised absences on the ground of sickness — Failure to take into account)

Referral: back of Case F‑52/05, originally brought before the Tribunal under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, by judgment of 12 July 2011 in Case T‑80/09 P Commission v Q (‘the referring judgment’), partially setting aside the judgment of 9 December 2008 in Case F‑52/05 Q v Commission (‘the original judgment’), which contained a ruling on the action lodged on 4 July 2005, in which Q sought, in essence, first, annulment of the decision by which the Commission had implicitly rejected her request for assistance, secondly, annulment of her career development reports for the periods 1 January to 31 October and from 1 November to 31 December 2003 (‘2003 CDRs’), and thirdly, an order that the Commission should pay her damages.

Held: The career development reports are annulled. The Commission is to pay the applicant the sum of EUR 10 000. The Commission is to bear its own costs incurred in the proceedings before the General Court and in the two sets of proceedings before the Tribunal and is to pay three quarters of the costs incurred by the applicant in the two sets of proceedings before the Tribunal. The applicant is to bear her own costs incurred in the proceedings before the General Court and one quarter of her costs incurred in the two sets of proceedings before the Tribunal.

Summary

1.      Officials — Reports procedure — Career development report — Failure to take authorised absences into account — Annulment of the report

(Staff Regulations, Art. 43)

2.      Officials — Psychological harassment — Administration’s duty to provide assistance — Refusal to move an official temporarily to another post — Official’s right to appropriate compensation for non-material damage

(Staff Regulations, Art. 24)

1.      While an official’s authorised absences cannot penalise him in the context of his assessment, his mark for efficiency may be increased to take account of the conditions in which he performed his duties despite having had less actual working time as a result of his absence. Therefore, failure by an institution to comply with its obligation to take into account authorised absences due to sickness when assessing an official’s efficiency in the context of drawing up a career development report constitutes a manifest error of assessment providing grounds for that report to be annulled.

(see paras 23-25)

See:

6 October 2009, T‑102/08 P Sundholm v Commission, para. 29

2.      The refusal of an institution to move an official temporarily to another post, in the context of a request for assistance based on an allegation of psychological harassment, may have more harmful consequences for the presumed victim than the delay in instituting an administrative inquiry procedure and must give rise to appropriate compensation for the non-material damage thus suffered.

(see para. 31)