(Civil service – Officials – Promotion – Omission from the list of officials promoted – 2005 promotion procedure – Promotion points – Merit – Seniority – Plea of illegality – Admissibility)

Application: brought under Articles 236 EC and 152 EA, in which Mr Sanchez Ferriz and nine other Commission officials seek, principally, annulment of the list of officials promoted in the 2005 promotion procedure, in so far as that list does not include their names, and, in the alternative, annulment of the decision allocating them promotion points in that procedure.

Held: The action is dismissed as manifestly inadmissible in part and manifestly unfounded in part. Each party is to bear its own costs.

Summary

(Staff Regulations, Arts 25, second para., 45, 90 and 91)

(Staff Regulations, Arts 25, second para., 45 and 90(2))

1.A proposal by a Promotion Committee to award different categories of promotion points under a promotion system introduced by an internal regulation of the Commission does not constitute an act adversely affecting an official. Promotion Committees have no power to take decisions concerning the allocation of promotion points. Consequently, although the second paragraph of Article 25 of the Staff Regulations requires that any decision adversely affecting a member of staff must state the grounds on which it is based, that does not apply to such a proposal from a Promotion Committee in respect of an official who has not been promoted.

(see para. 54)

2.In a promotion procedure, the appointing authority is not obliged to give reasons for a promotion decision, either to the person promoted or to the candidates who have not been promoted. It is obliged, however, to state the grounds for its decision rejecting a complaint lodged pursuant to Article 90(2) of the Staff Regulations by a candidate who has not been promoted.

(see para. 55)

See:

C-343/87 Culin v Commission [1990] ECR I‑225, para. 13

T-172/03 Heurtaux v Commission [2005] ECR-SC I‑A‑15 and II‑63, para. 42