(Civil service – Officials – Request for investigation – Refusal of an institution to translate a decision into the language chosen by the applicant – Manifest inadmissibility – Application manifestly lacking any foundation in law)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Marcuccio seeks, principally, annulment of the Commission’s decision rejecting his request that an investigation be carried out in relation to certain events with which he claims to have been confronted during 2001 and 2003, as well as an order that the Commission pay him damages.

Held: The applicant’s action is dismissed as being, in part, manifestly inadmissible and, in part, as manifestly lacking any foundation in law. The applicant is ordered to pay the costs.

Summary

Officials – Administration’s duty to have regard for the welfare of officials – Obligation to address to an official an individual decision worded in a language of which he has a thorough knowledge

(Art. 21 EC; Charter of Fundamental Rights, Art. 41(4); Rules of Procedure of the Commission, Annex, para. 4)

The institutions are under a duty to have regard for the welfare of their officials and therefore to address to an official an individual decision worded in a language of which he has a thorough knowledge.

It cannot be inferred from the third paragraph of Article 21 EC, or from paragraph 4 of the Code of good administrative conduct, or from Article 41(4) of the Charter of Fundamental Rights that every decision addressed by a Community institution to one of its officials should be drawn up in the initial language of correspondence. Those provisions are applicable to relations between the institutions and their staff only where the latter address a document to the institutions solely in their capacity as citizens of the European Union and not in their capacity as officials or other staff of the Communities. If the institutions were obliged, in all events, to reply to a request from an official in the same language as that used in that request, it would result in insurmountable difficulties for the institutions.

(see paras 60-65)

See:

T-197/98 Rudolph v Commission [2000] ECR-SC I‑A‑55 and II‑241, para. 46; T-118/99 Bonaiti Brighina v Commission [2001] ECR-SC I‑A‑25 and II‑97, para. 13; T-95/04 Lavagnoli v Commission [2006] ECR-SC I‑A‑2‑121 and II‑A‑2‑569, para. 48

F‑51/05 and F‑18/06 Duyster v Commission [2007] ECR-SC I‑A‑1‑0000 and II‑A‑1‑0000, paras 58 and 59