(Civil service — Open competition — Selection board’s decision not to admit to the assessment tests — Remedies — Court action brought without waiting for a decision on the administrative complaint — Admissibility — Amendment of the competition notice after admission tests held — Principle of the protection of legitimate expectations — Legal certainty)

In the present case, it is settled that the decision rejecting the complaint does not contain a re-examination of the applicant’s situation in the light of new elements of law or of fact, but upholds the decision to recruit the applicant at grade AD 5, step 2, as contained in the applicant’s contract of employment, and is confined to addressing the claims and arguments put forward by the applicant and providing some clarification regarding the grounds for that grading decision.

Should it become necessary to replace, on a temporary basis, a Judge who, on medical grounds, is prevented from acting, the Civil Service Tribunal would take the decision to avail itself of the assistance of a temporary Judge.

It must admittedly be observed that neither the Statute of the Court of Justice nor the Rules of Procedure of the Civil Service Tribunal, nor indeed the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice or those of the General Court, provide for the imposition of a sanction in the case of refusal to comply with such an order, the only possible response to a refusal being for the court to draw the appropriate inferences from that refusal in the decision closing the case (see, to that effect, Case 155/78 M. v Commission [1980] ECR 1797, paragr ...[+++]aphs 20 and 21), which is what the Civil Service Tribunal did in the judgment under appeal.

For the purposes of the present appeal, it must first be stated that the Civil Service Tribunal recalled that any decision relating to a specific individual which is taken under the Staff Regulations and adversely affects that person must state the reasons on which it is based, on the one hand, to enable the competent court to review the legality of the decision and, on the other, to provide the person concerned with the information necessary to allow him to ascertain whether or not the decision is well founded and to enable him to decide whether to bring an action. It ...[+++]added, however, referring to Case C‑254/95 P Parliament v Innamorati [1996] ECR I‑3423, paragraphs 24 to 28, that, as far as concerns decisions taken by a selection board in a competition, the obligation to state reasons must be reconciled with observance of the secrecy surrounding the proceedings of selection boards by virtue of Article 6 of Annex III to the Staff Regulations, secrecy which was instituted with a view to guaranteeing the independence of selection boards and the objectivity of their proceedings. Thus, observance of this secrecy precludes both disclosure of the attitudes adopted by individual members of selection boards and disclosure of any factors relating to individual or comparative assessments of candidates and that the obligation to state the reasons on which decisions of a selection board in a competition are based must take account of the nature of the proceedings concerned, which, at the stage of examination of the abilities of the candidates, are primarily comparative in character and accordingly covered by the secrecy inherent in those proceedings (paragraphs 30 and 31 of the judgment under appeal).

4. Notes with interest that the Commission's proposal for the new financial perspectives 2007 - 2013 includes pre-accession assistance to Turkey in a new Heading 4: External policies under the Sub-heading: The EU and its neighbourhood; is satisfied with this approach insofar as it follows the decision taken by Parliament in the Böge/Colom I Naval report on the Adjustment of the Financial Perspective for Enlargement to widen the scope of the pre-accession heading to also include other forms of partnership and enhanced cooperation with ...[+++] neighbouring countries and prospective accession candidates;