Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT Held or Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT Pronouncements
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT considered the Secretary-General¡¯s appeal. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT upheld Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT¡¯s determination and noted that it gave a clear directive to the Administration that, upon remand, it should consider staff member¡¯s suitability for conversion to a permanent appointment ¡°by reference to the relevant circumstances as they stood at the time of the first impugned refusal to convert her appointment¡± and that the Administration failed to comply with the said directive. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT also agreed with Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT that the Assistant Secretary-General for Office of Human Resources Management failed to give any consideration whatsoever to what each staff member might have to offer by way of transferable skills - save the cursory reference in each decision letter that although the staff member ¡°may have transferrable skills, [her] appointment [was] limited to service with the ICTY¡±. Moreover, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT found no merit in the Secretary-General¡¯s argument that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT improperly substituted its discretion for that of the Assistant Secretary-General for Office of Human Resources Management. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT noted that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT recognized that the Assistant Secretary-General for Office of Human Resources Management was entitled to take into consideration ICTY¡¯s finite mandate and downsizing situation, and appropriately referenced former Staff Rule 104.13 and Section 2 of ST/AI/2009/10 as the legal bases for giving due weight to ¡°all the interests of the Organisation¡±. However ¡°all the interests of the Organisation¡±, shall encompass the interests of ICTY, as an institution established by the General Assembly, not merely as a downsizing entity, in maintaining in its employ staff members who meet the ¡°highest standards of efficiency, competence, and integrity established in the Charter¡± in order for it to carry out its mandate. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT upheld Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT¡¯s finding that the Administration¡¯s decision not to grant a permanent appointment to Ms Featherstone was flawed and, thus, upheld Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT¡¯s rescission of the flawed decision. With respect to the moral damages, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT found that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT erred in law by not applying the amended Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT Statute as it existed at the time the Dispute Tribunal rendered its judgment which requires the staff member to present evidence to sustain an award of moral damages. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT dismissed the Secretary-General¡¯s appeal of the merits and granted the Secretary-General¡¯s appeal of the award of moral damages.
Decision Contested or Judgment/Order Appealed
Ms Featherstone contested the decision denying her a conversion of a fixed-term appointment to a permanent one. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT held that this decision was unlawful because she had not been given sufficient consideration. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT rescinded the contested decision and remanded the matter to the Assistant Secretary-General for Office of Human Resources Management for ¡°retroactive individualized consideration of Ms Featherstone¡¯s suitability for conversion of her appointment to a permanent one¡±, in conformity with the instructions in the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT judgment among others, within 90 days of the issuance of the impugned judgment. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT further awarded moral damages in the sum of EUR 3,000 to Ms Featherstone.
Legal Principle(s)
The Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management shall have the authority to place in a suitable position the following staff members when in need of placement outside the normal process: (a) Incumbents, other than staff members holding a temporary appointment, of positions reclassified upward for which an applicant other than the incumbent has been selected; (b) Staff, other than staff members holding a temporary appointment, affected by abolition of posts or funding cutbacks, in accordance with Staff Rule 9. 6 (c) (i); (c) Staff members who return from secondment after more than two years when the parent department responsible concerned has made every effort to place them. Where the appointment of a staff member is limited to a particular department/office, the staff member may be granted a permanent appointment similarly limited to that department/office. If the staff member is subsequently recruited under established procedures including review by a central review body for positions elsewhere in the United Nations Secretariat, the limitation is removed.