Judgment No. 4814
Decision
The complaint is dismissed.
Summary
The complainant, who was the subject of an investigation into allegations of harassment and abuse of authority, alleges that she received no reply, within the sixty-day time limit, to the claim submitted to the Director-General regarding “multiple conflicts of interest” of the Internal Oversight Service.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
summary procedure; complaint dismissed
Consideration 6
Extract:
Firstly, the Tribunal considers that the complainant’s reliance on Article VII, paragraph 3, of its Statute is misplaced. It is clear from her submissions that the request made by her counsels in their letter of 1 December 2022 addressed to the Director-General, which had been submitted for the first time on 18 November 2022, had already been considered and explicitly rejected by the DDG on 25 and 29 November 2022. The fact that this request was subsequently escalated to the Director-General does not alter the conclusion that the Administration had already taken a decision on it, thus excluding the application of Article VII, paragraph 3, of the Tribunal’s Statute.
Keywords
implied decision; direct appeal to tribunal; summary procedure; failure to exhaust internal remedies
Consideration 7
Extract:
Secondly, and even more fundamentally, it is well established in the Tribunal’s case law that procedural steps taken in the course of a process leading to a final decision cannot be the subject of a complaint to the Tribunal, though they may be challenged in the context of a complaint directed against that final decision (see Judgments 4704, consideration 5, 4404, consideration 3, 3961, consideration 4, 3876, consideration 5, and 3700, consideration 14). In the present case, the refusal to act on the request for the IOS’s divestiture is part of the process leading to a decision resulting from the investigation report (see, for a similar case, Judgment 3958, consideration 15). Accordingly, any alleged irregularities in the investigation could only be raised in the context of a complaint directed against the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings initiated against her, provided that she first exhausted the internal remedies available to her, as required by Article VII, paragraph 1, of the Statute of the Tribunal.
Reference(s)
Jugement(s) TAOIT: 3700, 3876, 3958, 3961, 4404, 4704
Keywords
direct appeal to tribunal; summary procedure; failure to exhaust internal remedies; step in the procedure
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