Background to the complaint

1. On 10 October 2018, Parliament adopted a medical reserve when recruiting the complainant as a contract agent.^[1] Dissatisfied with this decision, the complainant sent an email, on 8 January 2019, to a staff member of Parliament’s Directorate for HR Support and Social Services, attaching a copy of her administrative complaint^[2]. The complainant stated that the original and signed version of the complaint had been sent by internal mail to the Brussels office of the Directorate for HR Support and Social Services.

2. On 25 January 2019, Parliament sent to the complainant a letter of acknowledgment of receipt of her complaint, which had been registered on 23 January 2019.

3. On 20 May 2019, Parliament declared the complainant’s complaint inadmissible on the grounds that it had been submitted after the applicable three-month deadline for submitting an administrative complaint.^[3].

4. The complainant turned to the Ombudsman pointing out that she had submitted her complaint, within the deadline, on 8 January 2019. She wanted Parliament to examine the substance of her complaint.

The inquiry

5. The Ombudsman looked into Parliament’s handling of the administrative complaint.

6. On the basis of the material put forward by the complainant, the inquiry team suggested that Parliament’s services reconsider the admissibility decision in the light of the email sent by the complainant to Parliament on 8 January 2019.

7. Parliament agreed, and on 19 September 2019, informed the complainant of its decision to examine the substance of her complaint.

The Ombudsman's assessment

8. The Ombudsman welcomes Parliament’s decision to examine the substance of the complainant’s administrative complaint of 8 January 2019, and considers that Parliament has thus settled the case.

Conclusion

The Ombudsman closes this case with the following conclusion:

The complaint has been settled by the European Parliament.

The complainant and Parliament will be informed of this decision.

 

Lambros Papadias

Head of Inquiries - Unit 3

Strasbourg, 07/10/2019

 

[1] Article 100 of Regulation No 31 (EEC), 11 (EAEC), laying down the Staff Regulations of Officials and the Conditions of Employment of Other Servants of the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community: “Where the medical examination made before a member of the contract staff is engaged shows that he is suffering from sickness or invalidity, the authority referred to in the first paragraph of Article 6 may, in so far as risks arising from such sickness or invalidity are concerned, decide to grant him guaranteed benefits in respect of invalidity or death only after a period of five years from the date of his entering the service of the institution”. Available at the following link: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A01962R0031-20140501.

[2] According to Article 90(2) of Staff Regulations.

[3] Parliament stated that the deadline expired on 15 January 2019 and that the complaint was ‘notified’ to it on 23 January 2019.