Other Agency/Fund/Programme/UN Entity

The UNAT did not consider the seasonal absences of legal staff to be an exceptional circumstance. The UNAT found that, on the contrary, it was routinely expected that staff will take annual leave in the summer months. The UNAT further held that the fact that the Director General had failed to view any e-mail for a period of 19 days was an error for which the consequences had to be borne by the Director General. The UNAT denied the Director General’s motion for an extension of time to file a response to the staff members’ motion.

The Tribunal concluded that the Applicant was entitled to full compensation as provided for under Appendix D, with no deductions. The Tribunal also observed that the Applicant was entitled to receive interests for the delayed payment.

In view of the foregoing, the Tribunal:

a. Granted the application and rescinded the contested decision;

b. Directed the Respondent to pay to the Applicant the compensation under Appendix D with no deduction for pension benefits paid to third parties; and

c. Directed the Respondent to pay to the Applicant for the delayed payment of said...

UNAT referenced the Shanks jurisprudence (judgment No. 2010-UNAT-026bis) where it held that the authority of a final judgment - res judicata - cannot be so readily set aside. UNAT noted that there are only limited grounds as enumerated in Article 11 of the UNAT Statute for review of a final judgment and an allegation of an error in law is not one of them. UNAT dismissed the application to set aside and remand the previous judgment.

The application was not receivable because the Applicant was a former staff member of UNIDO. While the Applicant had no locus standi before UNDT, his case would have been properly filed either with ILOAT or UNAT.

In the matter of non-selection, it is evident that the Applicant was required to take a test but did not. The Applicant did not explain why she failed to take the test in any terms which show that the Administration must take responsibility for this failure. UNDT held that the Applicant must take responsibility for this failure and therefore can blame no-one other than herself for the non-selection. UNDT dismissed this aspect of the Application. UNDT held that the finding that there was insufficient evidence to pursue the matter of sexual harassment tantamounts to abuse abuse of authority on...

Public interest, transparency, scrutiny and accountability are not impaired by the removal of the Applicant’s name from the public domain. Consequently, and taking into consideration the sensitive nature of the facts, which involve alleged “sexual exploitation of a vulnerable person”, the Tribunal grants the Applicant’s request for anonymity. The decision not to renew the Applicant’s fixed-term appointment, communicated to him on 23 September 2019, is not grounded on disciplinary considerations, which were the subject of the instant case, and constitutes an autonomous administrative decision...

OIOS acted in accordance with the procedures set down in ST/SGB/2019/8 and ST/AI/2017/1, taking into account all relevant considerations in reaching its decision under section 5.1 of ST/AI/2017/1 to take no action on the complaint. Accordingly, there was no foundation for the substantive claim made by the Applicant, nor any foundation for any award of compensation. An investigation would not resolve the dispute between the Applicant and the SRSG, since there clearly was and remains inter-personal differences between them. Instead, it would likely deepen the divide between them. An...

The application was not receivable because the Applicant did not request management evaluation.