Decision of the European Ombudsman on complaint 765/2002/JMA against the Council of the European Union

Dear Mr X.,

On 24 April 2002, you made a complaint to the European Ombudsman against the Council of the European Union. The complaint concerned the allegedly unfair dismissal by the Council of your request for a deferral of the date set for the oral exam in competition Council/407/C. On 22 May 2002, you forwarded additional information.

On 4 June 2002, I sent the complaint to the Secretary General and High Representative of the Council of the European Union. The Council sent its opinion on 28 June 2002, and I forwarded it to you with an invitation to make observations, if you so wished. No observations appear to have been received from you.

I am writing now to let you know the results of the inquiries that have been made.

THE COMPLAINT

According to the complainant, the facts were as follows:

The complainant took part in open competition Council/407/C. Having passed the competition's written tests, he was admitted to the oral tests. By letter of 11 March 2002, the Recruitment Service of the Council invited him to participate in an interview with the Selection Board which was to be held in Brussels on 8 April 2002. The invitation letter only reached him at his place of work in an Embassy in Tripoli, Libya, on 9 April 2002.

The complainant contacted the responsible Council services and requested that a new date for his oral examination be set since he had received the invitation when the interviews had already been held. He submitted with his request a certificate expedited by the Embassy for which he worked in Tripoli, which stated that the invitation from the Council has been received by the complainant on 9 April 2002. Despite a series of exchanges by email and telephone, the Council services reconfirmed that the Jury was unable to hold the test on another day.

In summary, the complainant alleged that the Council's refusal to his request to defer the date of his oral examination for competition Council/407/C was unfair, since he only received the invitation letter when the interviews had already taken place. He therefore claimed that the institution should give him a new opportunity to pass the oral interview for competition Council/407/C.

THE INQUIRY

The Council's opinion

In its opinion, the Council first described the factual elements of the case. It recalled that the competition notice (OJ 2001 C 300/A, pt. IV.6) clearly stated that all candidates were to be informed individually and in writing of their status at each stage of the competition procedure. The Council noted that in the application form for the competition submitted by the complainant on 28 November 2001, his contact address was the European capital where the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs he was working for was located. Accordingly, all letters to the complainant had been sent to this address, including the letter of 11 March 2002 inviting him to participate in the competition's oral exam on 8 April 2002.

The Council regretted that the complainant could only have taken note of the invitation letter on 9 April 2002. The Council pointed out that, according to the complainant's own explanation as reflected in his e-mail and fax of 9 April 2002 to the recruitment service, the delay in receiving the letter was due to the fact that he had been on vacation.

The Council underlined that it bore no responsibility for any possible delay in the letter's transmission from his contact address to Libya, nor for any vacation the complainant had chosen to take during an ongoing competition.

In view of these facts, the Council concluded by confirming the decision taken by the jury of open competition Council/407/C not to postpone the date set for the complainant's oral tests.

The complainant's observations

To date no observations have been received from the complainant.

THE DECISION

1 Request for the deferral of the date of the oral exams in an open competition

1.1 The complainant alleges that the Council's refusal to his request to defer the date of his oral examination for competition Council/407/C was unfair, since he received the invitation letter from the Recruitment Services of the Council after the interviews had been held. He therefore claimed that the institution give him a new opportunity to take the oral interview for competition Council/407/C.

1.2 The Council argued that the application form for the competition submitted by the complainant indicated as his contact address that of the European capital where the Ministry of the Foreign Affairs he was working for was located. The institution pointed out that, according to the complainant's own explanation, the delay in receiving the invitation letter was due to the fact that he had been on vacation. It added that its services were not responsible for any possible delay in the letter's transmission from his contact address to his place of work in Libya.

1.3 The Notice of Open Competition Council/407/C referred generally in its point 6 to the information to be furnished by the Selection Board for the admission to the competition. It indicates that applicants should be informed individually in writing of the action taken at each stage of the procedure.

1.4 The Ombudsman notes that the Council properly followed these procedures by informing the complainant in writing of his admission to the oral tests of the competition. Since the letter had been dispatched to the contact address of the complainant in Spain a month before the tests, it would have been reasonable for the Council to assume that the letter would reach him in due time. There is no evidence which might lead the Ombudsman to conclude that the late receipt of the letter in Libya at the return of the complainant's vacation was due to the Council's lack of due diligence.

The Ombudsman considers that there are no elements at hand which indicate that the Council's decision to refuse the complainant's request to have the date of his oral examination deferred was taken in violation of any rule or principle binding upon the institution, in particular as regards the principle of equal treatment of all candidates and the objective choice among them.

Thus, the Ombudsman concludes that the inquiry has not revealed an instance of maladministration as regards this aspect of the case.

2 Conclusion

On the basis of the Ombudsman's inquiries into this complaint, there appears to have been no maladministration by the Council. The Ombudsman therefore closes the case.

The Secretary General and High Representative of the Council will also be informed of this decision.

Yours sincerely,

 

Jacob SÖDERMAN