Judgments nº T-742/16 RENV of The General Court, First Chamber, May 16, 2017

• Resolution Date: May 16, 2017
• Issuing Organization: First Chamber
• Decision Number: T-742/16 RENV

(Civil service - Officials - Psychological harassment - Article 12a of the Staff Regulations - Obligation to provide assistance - Internal Rules for the Advisory Committee on Harassment and its Prevention in the Workplace - Article 24 of the Staff Regulations - Request for assistance - Rejection - Decision rejecting the complaint - Independent content - Premature nature of the complaint - None - Role and powers of the Advisory Committee on Harassment and its Prevention in the Workplace - Option for an official to approach the Committee - Non-contractual liability)

In Case T-742/16 RENV,

CW, official of the European Parliament, residing in Brussels (Belgium), represented by C. Bernard-Glanz, lawyer,

applicant,

v

European Parliament, represented by E. Taneva and M. Dean, acting as Agents,

defendant,

ACTION pursuant to Article 270 TFEU seeking, first, annulment of the European Parliament’s decision of 8 April 2013 refusing to grant the request for assistance, submitted by the applicant because of the psychological harassment to which she felt she had been subjected by her superiors, and annulment of the decision of the Secretary-General of the Parliament of 23 October 2013 rejecting her complaint of 9 July 2013 and, second, damages to make good the loss the applicant is alleged to have suffered,

THE GENERAL COURT (First Chamber),

composed of I. Pelikánová, President, P. Nihoul and J. Svenningsen (Rapporteur), Judges,

Registrar: E. Coulon,

gives the following

Judgment

Background to the dispute

1 On 1 October 2008, CW was appointed as a probationary official of the Parliament and was assigned to the Czech Interpretation Unit (‘the Unit’). She was established in her post on 1 July 2009.

2 From 2008 to 2010, the applicant and Ms H. were colleagues in the Unit. When the post of Head of Unit became available, both women submitted applications. At the end of the selection procedure, the applicant’s application was rejected in favour of the application submitted by Ms H. (‘the Head of Unit’), who was appointed Head of Unit on 17 May 2010.

3 Relations between the applicant and the Head of Unit deteriorated, especially after a meeting of the Unit held on 23 May 2011.

4 On 19 February 2012, the applicant explained in an e-mail to the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Harassment (‘the Advisory Committee on Harassment’) that, ‘[s]ince February 1, 2012, [she had] been exposed to an enormous pressure exerted by [her] two superiors, [that she was] in a very difficult situation and [that she wished] to seek professional help in the matter’. Although the applicant had asked the Chairman of the Committee in that e-mail to let her know if they could meet as soon as possible, the Chairman of the Committee did not reply to that e-mail in writing. By e-mail of 21 February 2012, the applicant then contacted Ms W. (the secretary of the Committee), who, by e-mail sent the following day, replied that the Chairman of the Committee was in the process of moving to a new office, which might explain why he was not receiving his e-mails, and suggested that the applicant get in touch with Ms E-H. or Ms R., both of whom were members of the Advisory Committee on Harassment and were copied into the secretary’s e-mail. Without having contacted either of those members directly, the applicant replied, by e-mail of 22 February 2012 with the Chairman of the Committee also in copy, informing Ms W. that she wished to ask the Chairman of the Committee for advice as soon as possible. Ms W. then assured the applicant that her message would be forwarded to the Chairman of the Committee as soon as possible. According to the applicant, no follow-up action was taken by the Chairman of the Committee with regard to those e-mails.

5 On 29 March 2012, the applicant received a note from the Director of the Directorate for Interpretation (‘the Director’) of the DG (Directorate-General) for Interpretation and Conferences in the General Secretariat of the Parliament informing her that, given her recent state of health, she was relieved of tasks secondary to her duties as an interpreter. From that time onwards, the applicant performed only her main duties, namely, interpretation in Brussels (Belgium) and in the two other workplaces of the Parliament. She also continued to participate in a Polish language course. In addition, following a meeting held at the beginning of June 2013, the Director confirmed, by a note of 11 June 2013 addressed to the applicant, a copy of which was sent to the Head of Unit, that the applicant was henceforth allowed to undergo vocational training in the interest of the service.

6 On 4 July 2012, a new Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Harassment (‘the new Chairman of the Committee’) was appointed and, according to the Parliament, the applicant was subsequently invited to contact the Committee on several occasions.

7 On 5 February 2013, in accordance with Article 90(1) of the Staff Regulations, the applicant submitted a request to the appointing authority of the Parliament (‘the appointing authority’) for assistance under Article 24 of those regulations (‘the request for assistance’). In support of that request, the applicant provided a detailed description of 14 incidents or events which, in her view, whether taken individually or cumulatively, constituted psychological harassment by her Head of Unit and her Director. The applicant also stressed that the list of incidents was not exhaustive and that ‘[t]he institution, to which a formal request for assistance and a complaint [had] been presented [by CQ], [was] fully aware of the situation and [had] given a mandate to the Director-General [of the DG for Interpretation and Conferences] to investigate the matter’. She also asserted that her alleged harassment took various forms: ‘deceptive or misleading communication, refusal to communicate, degrading comments, attempts at public humiliation, defamation, pressure, bullying and threats, or unjustified depriving of professional tasks’. All of those events had led to ‘burnout’, as a result of which she was put on long-term sick leave.

8 By the request for assistance, in which she regretted the fact that, despite her demands and reminders, neither the Chairman of the Advisory Committee on Harassment nor any other member of that Committee had contacted her following her e-mail of 19 February 2012, the applicant asked the Parliament to reassign the Head of Unit or the Director to another post or to adopt a decision that would have the equivalent effect of protecting her from their abuses, and, in addition, to open a full-scale inquiry into the management methods and conduct of her superiors.

9 In a letter of 5 March 2013, the Director-General of the DG for Personnel (‘the Director-General for Personnel’), in his capacity as appointing authority, while regretting that the first contact which the applicant had tried - in vain - to establish with the Advisory Committee on Harassment in February 2012 ‘[had] not [led] to a full-scale examination of [her] complaints’, recommended that the applicant approach that committee, which was best placed to determine whether the facts she described could be considered psychological harassment. In order to facilitate that process, the contact details of the new Chairman were provided in that letter. However, in a letter of reply of 11 March 2013, the applicant’s legal advisor first of all observed that she had already ‘exhausted this option’, as she had ‘tried to complain to the [Advisory C]ommittee [on Harassment]’, and then explained that the applicant had lodged a request for assistance pursuant to Article 24 of the Staff Regulations precisely because the Committee, to whom she had turned in the first place, had failed to perform the duty assigned to it under the Internal Rules for the Advisory Committee on Harassment and its Prevention in the Workplace with a view to implementing Article 12a of the Staff Regulations (‘the Internal Rules on harassment’). The applicant’s legal advisor stated that, against that background, he ‘[found the] recommendation [of the Director-General for Personnel] shameful and unacceptable’.

10 By a decision of 8 April 2013, notified to the applicant on 10 April 2013, the appointing authority (the Director-General for Personnel), after examining the request for assistance and taking account of the information relating to the situation in the Unit of which it had become aware during its examination of a complaint of harassment submitted by a colleague from that Unit, CQ (see judgment in CQ v Parliament, F-12/13, EU:F:2014:214), refused to grant the applicant’s request for assistance (‘the decision refusing assistance’).

11 In that connection, the appointing authority expressed its regret at the applicant’s refusal to approach the Advisory Committee on Harassment, as that refusal meant that the appointing authority had been deprived of what would for it have been a ‘valuable opinion on [the applicant’s] allegations, [given that the Advisory] Committee [on Harassment was] best placed to [conduct] the full-scale inquiry that [the applicant was requesting]’.

12 However, notwithstanding the fact that the Advisory Committee on Harassment had not been approached, the appointing authority decided, after examining the copious documents submitted by the applicant and after acquiring information on the situation in the Unit from another investigation carried out in that Unit by the Committee, to refuse to grant the applicant’s request for assistance. Examining each of the events at issue set out by the applicant in her request, the appointing authority considered that they were minor, had already been mentioned in the context of the applicant contesting her staff report for 2011, or constituted legitimate decisions or conduct on the part of the appointing authority or the management in response to the applicant’s own conduct.

13 On 9 July 2013, the applicant submitted a...