UNAT Held or UNDT Pronouncements
The staff member, who served as an Associate Human Rights Officer at the P-2 level, applied for the Human Rights Officer post at the P-4 level. The hiring manager conducted a desk review of the job applications and, as a result, decided not to shortlist the staff member. Accordingly, his candidacy did not proceed in the selection process.
The UNAT noted that the UNDT had found it impossible to determine whether the document produced by the Secretary-General, reflecting the Administration’s assessment of the staff member’s skills, experience and suitability, constituted a “contemporaneous record” of the contested decision. The UNAT held that the staff member had failed to establish that the hiring manager had exceeded discretion when not shortlisting him. The UNAT found that the UNDT had not erred in finding that, even if a procedural irregularity may have arisen in relation to the timing or quality of the record produced, his non-selection was “an irrefutable foregone conclusion”.
The UNAT held that the Secretary-General had more than minimally demonstrated that the staff member’s candidature had been given full and fair consideration. The UNAT found that clear evidence showed that the criteria applied to the assessment of candidates had been those which had been published and that the staff member had not met all the requirements for appointment to the post. The UNAT found that he therefore lacked a significant chance of selection. The UNAT concluded that he had failed to discharge his burden of proving that he was denied a fair chance of selection.
The UNAT found no merit to the staff member’s request to award costs against the Secretary-General.
The UNAT dismissed the appeal and affirmed the UNDT Judgment.
Decision Contested or Judgment/Order Appealed
A staff member contested a decision not to select him for the P-4 level post of Human Rights Officer.
In Judgment No. UNDT/2025/067, the UNDT dismissed the application on the merits. The UNDT held that the staff member had not established that any unlawful criteria had been applied in the selection exercise nor that the contested decision had been tainted by ulterior motives, or that the hiring manager had exceeded his or her scope of discretion when not shortlisting him for the P-4 post.
The staff member appealed.
Legal Principle(s)
The Secretary-General has a broad discretion in making decisions regarding promotions and appointments, with such decisions subject to the rebuttable presumption of regularity. Thereafter the burden of proof shifts to the appellant who must show through clear and convincing evidence that they were denied a fair chance of promotion. In the appointment, transfer or promotion of staff, the necessity of ensuring the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity is recognized as the paramount consideration. If the Administration is able to even minimally show that the appellant’s candidature was given full and fair consideration, then the presumption of regularity stands satisfied.
In the review of appointment decisions, it is not the role of the UNDT or the Appeals Tribunal to substitute its own decision for that of the Secretary-General regarding the outcome of the selection process. The task of the UNDT is to examine whether the procedure provided in the Staff Regulations and Rules was applied in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner; and whether the staff member was given fair and adequate consideration. The Appeals Tribunal, on appeal, in the absence of a compelling argument that the UNDT erred on a question of law, or on a question of fact resulting in a manifestly unreasonable decision, will not lightly interfere with the findings of the UNDT.