Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT Held or Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT Pronouncements
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT held that the case was distinguishable from Finniss (judgment No. 2014-Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT-397) since there was no allegation of bias, discrimination, or any other kind of deteriorated or privileged relationship between the involved candidate and the Deputy CEO. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT disagreed with Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT¡¯s holding that the Deputy CEO should not have acted as a voting member of the assessment panel. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT held that in order to exclude the Deputy CEO¡¯s involvement in the selection exercise, there must be reasonable grounds and/or evidence of extraneous or improper motives, of which there was none (except unsubstantiated and inconsequential rumours). Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT held that the selection process had a built-in safeguard mechanism to keep any individual bias and preformulated opinion from influencing the selection exercise, which included two members of the assessment panel being external to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵJSPF, a staff member from the Office of Human Resources Management sitting on the panel ex officio making a recommendation to the CEO, who took the ultimate decision. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT held that the other circumstantial factors considered by the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT as possible indicators of deficiency in the selection exercise were not, by themselves, capable of invalidating, the selection process. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT held that Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT erred in law when it concluded that the Appellant was not afforded full and fair consideration for the position. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵAT upheld the appeal and vacated the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT judgment.
Decision Contested or Judgment/Order Appealed
The Applicant contested his non-selection for a position with Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵJSPF. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT found that the selection process was flawed and that the Applicant did not receive full and fair consideration, chiefly because of the involvement of the Deputy Chief Executive Officer (Deputy CEO), Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵJSPF, in the second selection exercise which constituted an actual or perceived conflict of interest. However, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵDT declined to rescind the decision or award the Applicant any monetary compensation.
Legal Principle(s)
A conflict of interest occurs when, by act or omission, a staff member¡¯s personal interests interfere with the performance of his or her official duties and responsibilities or with the integrity, independence, and impartiality required by the staff member¡¯s status as an international civil servant. There must be reasonable grounds and/or evidence of extraneous or improper motives in order to exclude a staff member from involvement in a selection exercise.