Chapter V. Decisions of the administrative tribunals of the United Nations and related intergovernmental organizations

• Pages: 301-326

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ChapterV

DECISIONS OF THE ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNALS

OF THE UNITEDNATIONS AND RELATED

INTERGOVERN MENTAL ORG ANIZATIONS1

A. UnitedNations DisputeTribunal

In 2014, the UnitedNations Dispute Tribunal in New York, Geneva and Nairobi issued

a total of 148 judgments. Summaries of se ven selected judgments are reproducedbelow.

1. Judgment No.UNDT/2014/040 (14 April 2014): Yakovlev v. Sec retary-General of the

UnitedNations2

L     —P    

—P          

     12. 3()—A      

e Applicant, a former sta member who had ser ved as a procurement ocer in the

Secretariat, cha llenged the decision of the administration to dism iss his request, made

six years aer t he expiry of the applicable t ime limit, to proceed with payment of several

entitlements he claimed were due to him upon sepa ration. e Applicant asserted that ex-

ceptional circums tances beyond his control had made it impossible for him to claim t hose

entitlements in a timely man ner. e administration denied t he request for an exception

but indicated that it might consider payi ng for tickets for the Applicant and his sp ouse if

the Applicant could prove that he had no nancia l means to return to his home country.

e Applicant did not respond or provide any proof. e issues before the Tribunal were

whether the Applicant had sta nding to bring his application; whether the ad ministration’s

discretion to deny the request for an except ion was properly and lawful ly exercised; and

whether the Applicant had manifestly abused the proceed ings and, if so, whether costs

should be ordered under article10.6 of the UN DT Statute.

1 In view of the large number of jud gments which were rendered in 2014 by the administ rative

tribunals of t he United Nations and related i ntergovernmental organizations , only those judgment s

which address sig nicant issues of UnitedNations a dministrati ve law or are otherwise of genera l inter-

est have been summa rized in the prese nt edition of the Yearbook. For the f ull text of the complete se ries

of judgments rendered by the t ribunals, namely, Judgments Nos. UN DT/2014/001 to UNDT/2014/148

of the United Nations Dispute Tribun al, Judgments Nos. 2014-UNAT-395 to 2014-UNAT-494 of

the United Nations Appea ls Tribunal, a nd Judgment Nos. 2014-1 to 2014-2 of the International

Monetary Fund Ad ministr ative Tribunal, see , respectively, see t he websites of the United Nations

Dispute Tribunal (htt p://www.un.org/en/oaj/dispute/judgment s.shtml), the United Nations Appeals

Tribunal (http://ww w.un.org/en/oaj/appeals/judgments.shtm l) and the Administrat ive Tribunal of the

International Monet ary Fund (https://ww w.imf.org/external/im fat/jdgmnts.htm).

2 Judge Goolam Mee ran (New York).

      

e Tribunal found that the Applicant had sta nding to bring his application, but

failed to establish t hat the administrat ion’s decision to refuse to grant him a n exception to

the two-year time li mit under sta rule 12.3(b) and proceed with payment was un lawful.

e Tribunal furt her found that the Applicant manifestly a bused the proceedings beforeit.

With regard to the issue of stand ing, the Tribunal referred to article3, parag raph1, of

its Statute which provides that an appl ication under the Statute may be led by “any former

sta member of the UnitedNations”. e Tribunal also referred to sta ru le 12.3(b) and the

absence of language t herein that would limit the application of the r ule to current or former

sta members in respect of entit lements that had not expired, and found t hat the rule en-

compassed exceptions that a llowed the waiver of time limits provided for in t he StaRules.

With respect to the exercise of discretion, the Tribunal obser ved that the Applicant

asserted his own t urpitude against the Organi zation as a ground for not having been able

to comply with the Rules. e Tribunal noted t hat the Applicant had had ample opportu-

nity to request a deferment of payment of his separat ion entitlements but had opted not to

do so. e Tribunal also noted that the Applicant had eectively refus ed to prove that he

was impecunious a nd thus obtain payment of the cost of return tr avel home. e Tribunal

found that the Applicant fai led to establish that the administ ration’s decision to refuse to

grant him an exce ption under sta rule 12.3(b) was unlawfu l.

With respect to abuse of process, t he Tribunal considered that the Applicant chose

deliberately to omit disclosing i nformation with respect to the very sa me factors that led the

administration to exercise its discretion to ref use his request, and chose to ignore the ad-

ministration’s will ingness to consider, for humanitarian reasons, payment of his t ravel back

home prior to ling his application wit h the Tribunal. By choosing to bring the mat ter before

the Tribunal while the ad ministration stood ready to reconsider its decision at least in pa rt,

the Applicant used up valuable resou rces and time that would otherwise h ave been devoted

to other more urgent matters pending before the Tribunal. e Tribunal also rejected t he

Applicant’s reliance on his incarceration (following his arrest and convict ion for nancial

crimes he committed against the Organization) as force majeure and found it to be disi n-

genuous, frivolous and unreasonable. ere were no unpredict able or uncontrollable events

that would have prevented the Applicant from li ng his claim for separation entitlements.

As a result, the Tribunal found that the Applicant had manifestly abused the proceedings

before it and ordered the Applicant to pay costs in the sum of USD5,000 for abuse ofprocess.