Judgment of the General Court Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition of 3 February 2021, Moi v Parliament, T-17/19

• Date: 03 February 2021
• Year: 2021

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XIV. JUDGMENTS PREVIOUSLY DELIVERED

1. LITIGATION OF THE UNION : ACTION FOR ANNULMENT

Judgment of the General Court (Fourth Chamber, Extended Composition ) of 3 February

2021, Moi v Parliament, T-17/19

Institutional law – European Parliament – Psychological harassment – Decisions of the President of the

Parliament finding that two accredited parliamentary assistants suffered harassment and imposing on a

Member of Parliament the penalty of forfeiture of entitlement to the daily subsistence allowance for a

period of 12 days – Rules 11 and 166 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament – Internal appeal –

Decision of the Bureau of the Parliament confirming the penalty – Rule 167 of the Rules of Procedure of

the Parliament – Action for annulment – Time limit for bringing an action – Admissibility – Rights of the

defence – Non-contractual liability

The applicant was a Member of the European Parliament from 2014 to 2019. In November 2017, after

submitting a request for assistance,

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claiming problems with their working environment, two of her

accredited parliamentary assistants lodged a harassment complaint with the Parliament’s advisory

committee responsible for those matters.

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By two separate letters of 2 October 2018, the President of the Parliament, after considering the

opinion of the advisory committee and the applicant’s comments, adopted, first, the decision finding

that the two complainants had suffered harassment and, second, the decision imposing on the

applicant, as a penalty for her conduct towards the two complainants, the forfeiture of entitlement to

the daily subsistence allowance for a period of 12 days.

On 16 October 2018, the applicant lodged an internal appeal

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with the Bureau of the Parliament

against the penalty decision of the President. By decision of 12 November 2018, delivered on

14 November 2018 in plenary sitting and notified that same day, the Bureau of the Parliament

confirmed the penalty decision of the President. On 11 January 2019, the applicant brought an action

for annulment against the decisions of the President concerning both the harassment and the

penalty, against the decision of the Bureau of the Parliament, as well as an action for damages.

By its judgment, the General Court, sitting in extended composition, annuls those three decisions and

dismisses the applicant’s action as to the remainder, in particular her a ction for damages. The Court

thus clarifies the case-law in relation to, first, the relationship between the right to be heard and the

rights of the defence and, second, the evidence which must be established in order to obtain an

annulment following the finding of a breach of the rights of the defence. Furthermore, the Court

provides clarifications on the limits of the application of the rule ‘of correspondence’

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between the

complaint and the application.

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Under Article 24 of the Staff Regulations of Officials of the European Union (‘the St aff Regulations’).

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The committee dealing with harassment complaints between accredited parliamentary assistants and Members of Parliament and its

prevention at the workplace was established by Article 1(1) of the internal rules of the European Parli ament of 14 April 2014, as amended on

6 July 2015.

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Under Rule 167 of the Rules of Procedure of the Parliament.

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That rule requires, failing which it will be deemed to be inadmissible, that a plea or head of claim submitted before the EU Courts must

already have been raised in the pre-litigation procedure or must be cl osely linked to criticism made in the same context.