Judgment No. 4463
Decision
1. The implicit decision of the WTO’s Director-General to dismiss the complainant’s grievance of 11 December 2019 is set aside.
2. The WTO shall pay the complainant moral damages in the amount of 2,000 Swiss francs.
3. It shall also pay him costs in the amount of 750 Swiss francs.
4. All other claims are dismissed.
Summary
The complainant objects to the disclosure of his medical situation.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
complaint allowed; medical records; medical secret
Consideration 2
Extract:
The complainant requests that oral proceedings be held. However, the Tribunal notes that the parties have presented sufficiently extensive and detailed submissions and documents to allow the Tribunal to be properly informed of their arguments and the evidence. Accordingly, the application for oral proceedings is rejected.
Keywords
oral proceedings
Consideration 4
Extract:
The Tribunal notes that, following the exchange of pleadings, the sole genuine purpose remaining of the original complaint is, as the parties themselves acknowledge, to ascertain whether the complainant is entitled to compensation for the moral injury he submits he suffered on account of the memorandum of 14 November 2017 being held in the WTO’s files between the date when the memorandum was issued and the date when the WTO removed it from all its files.
The complaint therefore retains a purpose because the Tribunal alone can decide whether the complainant is entitled to moral damages, which is a live controversy within the meaning of the Tribunal’s case law (see, to that effect, Judgment 4060, consideration 3).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 4060
Keywords
cause of action
Consideration 6
Extract:
[I]t is a matter of settled case law that, as a general rule, a complainant must, in order to raise a cause of action, demonstrate arguably that the impugned administrative decision caused injury to her or him or was liable to cause injury (see, in particular, Judgments 3168, consideration 9, and 4317, consideration 4). Such is the case here, and it follows that the complainant must be allowed to argue before the Tribunal that the effect of the implied decision rejecting his grievance was to allow the injury he submits he suffered to persist.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3168, 4317
Keywords
cause of action
Consideration 10
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal considers that the request for production of the file is based on extremely general allegations and is therefore merely a “fishing expedition”, which the relevant case law does not allow (see, in particular, Judgments 2097, consideration 23, and 2497, consideration 15).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 2097, 2497
Keywords
disclosure of evidence; fishing expedition
Consideration 15
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal has no jurisdiction to order national authorities to exempt from national taxation sums paid by an organisation pursuant to an award by the Tribunal.
Keywords
national taxation of the tribunal's award
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