Discrimination and other improper motives

The UNAT noted that the vacancy had been advertised for only ten days which violated the mandatory requirement of the UNRWA Personnel Directive, and this violation had been corrected by cancelling the recruitment process and constituting another one that met the requirement of the minimum posting period.

The UNAT held that the staff member had not identified the alleged defects of the impugned Judgment but rather had reargued his case and, therefore, had not discharged his burden of satisfying the Appeals Tribunal that the impugned Judgment had been in error.

The UNAT was of the view that, in...

The Tribunal noted that, as stipulated in sec. 5.1 of ST/AI/2017/1, “OIOS retains the ultimate authority to decide which cases it will consider and shall determine whether the information of unsatisfactory conduct received merits any action”.

Accordingly, the Tribunal found that the contested decision was lawful.

As the decision by OIOS not to open an investigation was found to be a lawful exercise of the Administration’s discretion, there was no basis for the referral of this case to the Secretary-General for possible action to enforce accountability.

Receivability

The Respondent challenged the receivability of the application. However, the Tribunal found it receivable as it considered that the Applicant challenged the decision not to initiate an investigation into her complaint of potential prohibited conduct, and not the outcome of the management evaluation as argued by the Respondent.

Merits

The Tribunal recalled that it is not mandated to conduct a fresh investigation in the matter, nor to draw its own conclusions of the evidence. Instead, it is tasked with identifying whether the preliminary assessment was conducted properly based on the...

The UNAT held that the President of the Council of ICAO, in taking the decision not to approve the appointment of the staff member to the post, had regard to relevant considerations: the staff member was negatively assessed by the interview panel and the assessment centre, and had serious weaknesses in areas of vision and other competencies which were critical skills for ICAO. The UNAT found that the reasons provided by the President accorded with the facts.

The UNAT was of the view that, although the President discussed the matter with some members of the panel, these discussions had not...

The UNAT noted that the staff member had been among the staff whose fixed-term appointments were not renewed due to the closure of the UNAMID mission.

With regard to his colleague who was laterally reassigned to the Headquarters and consequently remained in service, the UNAT found that the reassignment had been directly related to the undisputed fact that the colleague could not have been repatriated to Afghanistan for safety and security reasons. The UNAT was of the view that without the lawfulness of the reassignment decision having been placed before it for determination, it was unable to...

The UNAT found that the UNRWA DT had erred in law when it found that the applicable legal framework allowed the interview panel to conduct technical assessments of the candidates. However, the UNAT held that the procedural irregularity of the panel having held a second round of interviews of a purely technical nature, would not suffice to grant the appeal because the outcome of the recruitment process would have been the same.

The UNAT held that the UNRWA DT had not erred with regards to the Agency’s failure to correctly apply gender parity rules. The UNAT found that gender parity had not...

ST/AI/2020/5 only applies to selection decision where the selection decision is made from either (a) “a list of candidates” that was “endorsed by a central review body” or (b) a competitive examination roster. None of these situations apply in this case. It is unchallenged that the contested selection decision was governed by ST/AI/2010/3/Rev.1 (Staff selection system), which in sec. 3.1 provides that “[t]he process leading to selection and appointment to the D-2 level shall be governed by the provisions of the present administrative instruction”. As per sec. 7.7 of ST/AI/2010/3/Rev.1, for a...

The UNAT found no error in the UNDT’s reliance on the communication between the staff member and her attorney when it established that she had submitted false information in her claims for reimbursement for medical expenses. The UNAT noted that her attorney had voluntarily submitted the privileged document as an attachment to her application. The UNAT observed that she had not imposed any limitations or reservations on the UNDT’s use of the document and had referred to it on multiple occasions in the course of the proceedings. The UNAT agreed that she had waived her right to confidentiality...

The UNAT held that the Administration did not act unreasonably or unlawfully in requiring the staff member to work from the office two days per week. It further held that relevant considerations, including the staff member’s personal and medical circumstances, were taken into consideration, and irrelevant considerations were excluded. The UNAT also found that there was no obligation on the Administration to establish that the requested accommodations represented a disproportionate or undue burden on the workplace.

The UNAT also found no merit in the staff member’s argument that the lack of...

The application is DISMISSED in its entirety.