T-54/91

JUDGMENT OF 21. 5. 1992 — CASE T-54/91

That requirement to state reasons is com- to enable them to judge whether they plied with if in the letter sent to a candi- should apply for it and what supporting date not admitted to the tests the Selec- documents are important for the proceed- tion Board, after reconsidering the ings of the Selection Board and must application at the candidate's request, therefore be enclosed with the applica- states that the practical experience tion. required by the notice of competition has not been demonstrated in full by the clos- ing date for applications laid down in that notice. The Selection Board is obliged to take into account only the supporting docu- ments which the candidates must submit 2. Although the Selection Board for a com- before the closing date for applications petition based on qualifications and tests laid down in the notice of competition. It has a discretion in evaluating the qualifi- is under no obligation whatever to check cations and practical experience of the through all the applications to ascertain candidates, it is nevertheless bound by the whether all the documents required have wording of the notice of competition. The been forwarded and to ask candidates, if basic function of that notice is to give necessary, to produce additional docu- those interested the most accurate infor- ments; nor is it obliged to take into con- mation possible about the conditions of sideration documents produced after the eligibility for the post to be filled, in order closing date.

J U D G M E N T O F T H E C O U R T O F FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber) 21 May 1992 *

V

European Parliament, represented by Jorge Campinos, Jurisconsult, and initially by Roland Bieber and subsequently by François Vainker, of its Legal Service, act- ing as Agents, with an address for service in Luxembourg at the General Secretar- iat of the European Parliament, Kirchberg, defendant,

A P P L I C A T I O N for the annulment of the decision of the Selection Board for Open Competition PE/107/C not to admit the applicant to the tests in that com- petition,

T H E C O U R T O F FIRST INSTANCE (Fourth Chamber),

composed of: R. Garcia-Valdecasas, President of the Chamber, R. Schintgen and C. P. Briët, Judges,

Registrar: H . Jung,

JUDGMENT OF 21. 5. 1992 — CASE T-54/91

2 The notice of competition, published in Official Journal 1990 C 118 of 12 May 1990 (French edition), p. 28, laid down the following conditions for admission to the tests:

'III. Competition — Nature and eligibility

A. General conditions

B. Special conditions

1. Certificates and diplomas and/or practical experience required

4 Heading V of the notice of competition, entitled 'Reconsideration of applications', reads as follows:

'Any candidate who feels that a mistake has been made has the right to ask for his/her application to be reconsidered. Within 20 days of the date postmarked on the letter stating that he/she has not been admitted to the competition, the candi- date may complain to the recruitment unit, European Parliament, BAK 222, L-2929 Luxembourg, quoting the number of the competition in the letter and on the envelope.

The Selection Board will then reconsider the application, having regard to the can- didate's observations, within 30 days of the date postmarked on the letter request- ing reconsideration.'

5 Heading VIII of the notice of competition, published in the Official Journal of 12 May 1990, stated that applications, accompanied by supporting documents, were to be submitted not later than 25 June 1989. The Court of First Instance, which notes that this should in fact read '25 June 1990', considers that to be a material error which is of no consequence, especially as none of the parties has referred to it.

6 The applicant holds a certificate of lower secondary education, which is the Bel- gian equivalent of secondary school education, in addition to a certificate of com- pletion of the sixth year of secondary education and a certificate of higher second- ary education, which indicate that she pursued technical studies in the ' O G Secretariat 20 h' subdivision of the 'Qualification' section, and a certificate attest- ing to her suitability to go on to higher education. The last three certificates were issued on 30 June 1987 by the Institut Marie José, Liège.

io In a letter of 10 April 1991 the applicant requested the Selection Board to recon- sider her application once more, again laying emphasis on the practical experience she had acquired between 1 October 1987 and 31 October 1988 and between 22 August 1988 and 12 November 1989, a total of 28 months, and on the fact that she had a certificate of completion of the sixth year of secondary education con- firming that she had followed a technical course.

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ii The applicant maintains that her request evoked no response. The defendant, on the other hand, states that in a letter of 22 May 1991 the Chairman of the Selection Board confirmed the board's decision not to admit the applicant to the tests in the competition. The Parliament has supplied a copy of a letter dated 22 May 1991, in which the Chairman of the Selection Board informed the applicant that 'each appli- cation was carefully examined on the basis of the provisions of the notice of com- petition' and also 'reminded' her that her letter did not constitute a complaint.

Procedure

i2 In those circumstances the applicant brought the present action by application lodged at the Registry of the Court of First Instance on 4 July 1991.

i7 It was established at the hearing, with respect to the supporting evidence for the applicant's practical experience in the strict sense, that she had merely forwarded to the Selection Board together with her application, and hence before the closing date for the production of supporting documents, a certificate of employment relat- ing to the part-time work she had carried out for a firm in Soumagne from 1 Octo- ber 1987 to 31 October 1988, and a certificate relating to her full-time employment with a notary in Liège from 22 August 1988 to 12 November 1989. Only with her complaint of 18 March 1991 did the applicant submit the employment certificate issued on 18 October 1990 relating to her work from 28 November 1989 to 31 October 1990 as an employee of a temporary employment agency in Luxem- bourg.

is Moreover, the parties stated at the hearing that they were in agreement on the fact that the applicant had submitted together with her application three 'provisional documents' certifying that on 30 June 1987 she had obtained a 'certificate of com- pletion of the sixth year of technical studies — Economics', a certificate of higher secondary education and a certificate attesting to her suitability to go on to higher education. The parties disagree, on the other hand, on the date when the definitive certificates themselves, mentioned in paragraph 6 above, were submitted: the appli- cant maintains that she forwarded them together with her application, while the defendant maintains that it received them only with the letter of 18 March 1991 in which the applicant requested her application to be reconsidered.

(i) dismiss the application as unfounded;

(ii) award costs in accordance with the applicable provisions.

Substance

2i The applicant stated on several occasions during the written procedure and the oral procedure that she was relying on a single plea in law in support of her applica- tion, namely the failure to state the reasons on which the contested decision is based. However, in the context of this plea and after setting forth her arguments, she maintained that the decision was also vitiated by a manifest error of appraisal and was adopted in breach of the conditions laid down by the notice of competi- tion. The Court of First Instance therefore considers that the application has to be examined from this point of view as well.

The plea alleging infringement of the obligation to state reasons

22 In support of her application the applicant alleges an infringement of the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Com- munities, which states that 'any decision relating to a specific individual which is

24 The applicant claims that she sent to the Selection Board together with her appli- cation copies of all the certificates issued to her by the Institut Marie José in Liège and copies of the employment certificates relating to the posts she had held from 1 October 1987 to 31 October 1988 and from 22 August 1988 to 12 November 1989. In her view those documents show, first, with respect to the education requirement, that she had completed her secondary education leading to a diploma, and second, with respect to the requirement of practical experience, that the Selec- tion Board should have taken into consideration both the practical experience duly attested by the employment certificates and the three years of additional secretarial training completed by her and evidenced by the certificate of higher secondary edu- cation, such training being relevant to the duties described in the notice of com- petition. The applicant adds that, even on the assumption that the definitive cer- tificates had not been submitted within the time-limit laid down in the notice of competition, her qualifications were sufficiently apparent from the provisional docu- ments alone.

25 In the applicant's view, the grounds stated for the contested decision do not explain in what respect the requirement of practical experience in the notice of competi- tion had not been satisfied in full on the date of the submission of her application, nor why her additional training had not been taken into account.

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26 At the hearing the applicant also laid emphasis on the fact that the Selection Board for the competition had been mistaken in considering that her part-time employ- ment with the firm in Soumagne had been half-time work, when in fact it had been three-quarters-time work. If that period of employment had been calculated cor- rectly, the Selection Board would have had to conclude that the applicant possessed a total of 24 months' practical experience, in other words the two years required in the notice of competition, simply because of her two jobs with the firm in Sou- magne (three-quarters of 13 months) and the notary in Liège (15 months).

3i As to the method of calculating the length of the applicant's practical experience, the defendant states that it took into consideration only the school and employ- ment certificates submitted before the closing date for applications. The 'provision- al documents' stating that the applicant had obtained the diploma and certificates she now relies on did not give sufficient information on the subject-matter of the applicant's studies. It was not until she produced the definitive diploma and cer- tificates relating to her studies that further details as to the subject-matter of those studies were provided. Consequently, it was not until then that the Selection Board learnt that the applicant's certificate of higher secondary education mentioned 'sec- retarial studies' and that her certificate of completion of the sixth year of second- ary education specified that that course had lasted for an entire school year. The Selection Board was therefore right to refuse to take the additional training into consideration. Moreover, with reference to practical experience as such, the defen- dant explains that although the periods of employment stated as having been spent with the first and second employers coincided for a period of more than two months, from 22 August 1988 to 31 October 1988, the Selection Board neverthe- less accepted 21.5 months' practical experience, consisting of 13 months' half-time work, that is 6.5 months, and 15 months' full-time work.

35 However, that case-law also states that the Selection Board is obliged to give indi- vidual explanations at a later stage to those candidates who expressly request them. In this case, the Court considers that the reasons stated in the decision of 5 April 1991 ('the requirement of practical experience had not been satisfied in full by the closing date for applications'), which was adopted following the request for recon- sideration, read in conjunction with the original letter of 4 March 1991, provided the applicant with sufficient information as to the grounds for the refusal to admit her to the competition. She was clearly informed that at the closing date for appli- cations she had not produced sufficient documentation showing that she had two years' practical experience. This Court considers that that information was suffi- cient to enable the applicant to determine whether or not the decision was justified and to decide whether it was appropriate to bring proceedings, and also to enable the Court to exercise its power of judicial review.

36 While it is true that in its defence the defendant has provided further details as to the manner in which the length of the applicant's practical experience was calcu- lated and the documents annexed to the application, it does not necessarily follow

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that the information previously given was inadequate. Moreover, the Selection Board for a competition with over 2 000 applicants cannot be required to contact each candidate individually to check whether all the documents which the candi- date could have produced, or which are referred to in the candidate's application, have in fact been submitted. Similarly, it is not for a Selection Board faced with incomplete or ambiguous documents — as in the present case the certificate of part-time employment with no indication of the duration of the work — to con- tact the candidate for the purpose of clarifying the omissions or ambiguities.

40 . It is important to note at once that, in order to appraise the applicant's practical experience, as required by point III. B.l. b of the notice of competition, the Selec- tion Board was obliged to take into account only the documents which the candi- dates were required to submit before the closing date for applications. It was under no obligation whatever to check through all the applications to ascertain whether all the documents required had been forwarded and to ask candidates, if necessary, to produce additional documents; nor was it obliged to take into consideration documents produced after the closing date.

4i In this case the Court finds that the parties are agreed that the employment certifi- cates and 'provisional documents' referred to in paragraphs 17 and 18 above were submitted by the applicant before the closing date.

42 The applicant also concedes that the employment certificate relating to her work for a temporary employment agency during the period from 28 November 1989 to 31 October 1990, issued on 18 October 1990, was submitted after the closing date. In accordance with the foregoing considerations regarding the obligations of the Selection Board with respect to consideration of the documents submitted by can- didates, the Selection Board for the competition in question was not, therefore, under any obligation to take account of the abovementioned period of employ- ment.

43 The parties are not in agreement, however, as to whether the three certificates, duly authenticated, issued by the Institut Marie José of Liège on 30 June 1987 were sub- mitted together with the application.

47 It follows from these considerations that at the time of the closing date for the production of documents the applicant had not furnished proof of the additional training to which she refers.

48 It follows that the only documents which the Selection Board was obliged to take into consideration when appraising the applicant's practical experience were the employment certificates relating to her work for the Soumagne company and the Liège notary.

49 With respect to the first employment certificate, attesting that the applicant had been employed on a part-time basis from 1 October 1987 to 31 October 1988, this Court finds that it contains no details enabling the precise duration of the work done by the applicant each day, week or month to be determined. Moreover, the assertion at the hearing that such employment had been three-quarters-time also remains unproven. It should be noted that in her application the applicant did not even state that it was part-time employment. The Court therefore considers that in the absence of other information, the Selection Board was entitled to treat the work referred to in the certificate as half-time work and that there was no manifest error on its part. The period of 13 months' employment stated in the certificate was

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therefore rightly taken into account by the Selection Board, in determining the length of the applicant's practical experience, as a period of six-and-a-half months' full-time employment.

hereby:

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1. Dismisses the application;

2. Orders the parties to bear their own costs.

Garcia-Valdecasas Schintgen Briet