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LI ORDINARY SESSION ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL OF THE OAS
OEA/Ser.R JUDGMENT 148 THE ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL OF THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES, Composed of Rosa Montalvo Cabrera, President; Morton Sklar, judge; Agustin Gordillo, judge, Has before it for judgment the proceedings on the complaint 276 lodged by Virginia Jaume Sosa against the Secretary General of the Organization of American States. The Complainant was represented by Cecilia Schroeder Rius, and the Secretary General by Louis G. Ferrand, in keeping with Article 42 of the Rules of Procedure of the Administrative Tribunal. WHEREAS: 1. On December 12, 2001, Ms. Jaume Sosa (“Complainant”) filed a complaint against the Secretary General with the Administrative Tribunal, alleging damages due to failure to renew her contract after many years of service, which the Tribunal registered on December 27, 2002 as Claim No. 276, Virginia Jaume Sosa v. Secretary General, and a copy of which it forwarded to the Secretary General (“Respondent”). 2. On February 7, 2002, after the Tribunal approved a request for extension, the Secretary General filed a Motion for Dismissal due to lack of jurisdiction. 3. On October 29, 2002, the Tribunal ruled in Judgment No. 142 that A. Under Tribunal Statute, Art. VI.1, Ms. Jaume Sosa’s complaint was “inadmissible because of her failure to exhaust the administrative requirements stipulated in Article VI of the Tribunal’s Statute”, but that B. “Complainant’s claims presented to this Tribunal on December 12, 2001, and then communicated to the Secretary General, constitute a timely administrative appeal of his final action regarding the Complainant, thereby requiring him to respond [to] such appeal through the regular administrative procedures called for under the General Standards and the Staff Rules as if it were a newly arising hearing request filed in a timely manner before the Administration” (p. 6). 4. Based on this decision, the Tribunal ordered that the Secretary General respond within 20 days to the constructive notice appeal that had been provided to the Secretary General. 5. On November 11, 2002, the Secretary General informed Ms. Jaume Sosa that he would assign a hearing officer to her case, which he did on December 16, 2002 in the person of Robert Casanas, Director of the GS/OAS in Uruguay. 6. On December 17, 2002, Dr. Oscar Menjivar of the Department of Human Resource Services (“DHRS”) discussed the General Standards and the Staff Rules with Ms. Jaume Sosa, informing her that after the hearing officer’s report and the Secretary General’s decision, she could make a request for reconsideration. 7. On January 31, 2003, Ms. Laura Haran of DHRS informed Ms. Jaume Sosa that when she received the Secretary General’s decision, if she wished to request reconsideration under Staff Rule 112.2, the Secretary General would have to receive the request no later than the 15th day after she received notice of the hearing decision. 8. On March 7, 2003, Dr. Menjivar of DHRS notified Ms. Jaume Sosa by letter of the Secretary General’s decision to deny her claim. 9. On March 10, 2003, Dr. Haran of DHRS informed Ms. Jaume Sosa by email that the Secretary General’s decision would be arriving by post. 10. Ms. Jaume Sosa claims that she received DHRS’s letter on March 25, 2003, thus the 15-day response period began to run the next day, on March 26, 2003, and the deadline was thus April 8, 2003. 11. On April 7, 2003, at 3:55pm, Ms. Jaume Sosa sent her request for reconsideration to the General Secretariat by means of the carrier service DHL. 12. On April 9, 2003, the day after the deadline, GS/OAS received Ms. Jaume Sosa’s request. 13. On April 25, 2003, Dr. Menjivar of DHRS informed Ms. Jaume Sosa that the Secretary General had denied her request for reconsideration since it had not be received within the 15-day time period. 14. On August 7, 2003, the Tribunal received a new complaint from Ms. Jaume Sosa, in which she adopted the allegations made in her December 12, 2001 complaint. 15. On August 11, 2003, the Secretary General received the new complaint, thus, the 20-day time period by which he was to respond began running the next day, August 12, 2003, and the deadline of the 20th day was thus August 31, 2003. 16. August 31, 2003 being a Sunday, and September 1, 2003 being a national holiday, Respondent filed a motion for dismissal on September 2, 2003. 17. On October 2, 2003, Ms. Jaume Sosa responded to the motion for dismissal, arguing, among other things, that: A. Given the Tribunal’s decision on October 29, 2002 that Ms. Jaume Sosa’s complaint was a timely administrative appeal, to which the Secretary General should respond through regular administrative procedures, the deadline for his so acting was November 20, 2002. The Secretary General’s decision to appoint a hearing officer instead of rendering a decision by November 20, 2002, was, therefore, in violation of the Tribunal’s ruling. B. Complainant actually filed a previous request for reconsideration before the one she filed on April 7, 2003. Complainant claims that she filed this request within 15 days of the October 29, 2002 ruling, but does not provide any particulars about this request, including its date of submission. C. Criterion for submission of her request was established solely by Laura Haran of DHRS and not by any Staff Rules or regulations. D. “Fax and/or electronic mail are not acceptable for establishing the validity of administrative or procedural actions” because they are not envisaged in the Rules or Statute, do not guarantee the genuineness of the documents, and are inappropriate given the importance of the issues to be decided (p. 3). E. Dr. Haran participated in communicative procedures that can be interpreted as nothing other than attempts to evade and confuse, an understandable strategy since “the only possible way for the opposing party to defend this case is to prevent, at all costs, the substantive matter of the case from being heard, because in this area the only thing that can be demonstrated is the shamelessness of having proceeded contrary to all procedures of law” (p. 3). F. The opposing party (apparently Dr. Haran) refused to abide by the very OAS standards she required of Ms. Jaume Sosa. G. “Because of the omission in the regulations regarding what criterion should be applied to secure respect for the valid filing of administrative requests and appeal,” Ms. Jaume Sosa reasonably applied a standard from an analogous statute: “The Rules of the Administrative Tribunal concretely establish in Article 33, paragraph 1, that in the case of staff located outside headquarters ‘the date that appears in the postal registration by the Post Office in which it has been deposited shall be taken as the date of presentation of the complaint’” (p. 4). Since the date on which Ms. Jaume Sosa deposited her request was April 7, 2003, she met the deadline of April 8, 2003. 18. On October 22, 2003, the Secretary General responded, arguing, among other things, that: A. Ms. Jaume Sosa’s knowledge of English implied her full capability of “reading and complying with the applicable General Standards and Staff Rule provisions of the General Secretariat” (p. 1); B. Sending responses by fax or email, delivery mechanisms by which Ms. Jaume could have avoided the late arrival caused by her use of DHL, is an accepted legal practice in several countries for the sending and filing of legal documents, and is, moreover, a practice that Ms. Jaume herself used to file her 1-year Administrative Technician contract as well as to communicate with Dr. Haran; C. DHRS’s Menjivar’s letter to Ms. Jaume Sosa, dated November 11, 2002, was within the 20-day deadline within which the Secretary General was required to respond to the Tribunal’s decision of October 29, 2002; D. Ms. Jaume Sosa’s attorney Schroeder’s conversation on December 16, 2002 with the Secretary General’s attorney Ferrand constituted consent on Ms. Jaume Sosa’s part to continue with the hearing process, and such consent constituted a nullification of her December 2, 2002 request for reconsideration; E. Despite the claims of Ms. Jaume Sosa to the contrary, DHRS’s Haran was an agent of DHRS’s director, Dr. Mejivar, and fully authorized by him to deal with her on his behalf. 19. On October 22, 2003, Dr. Oscar Menjivar submitted an affidavit claiming, among other things, that: A. The naming of a hearing officer is a practice current in the OAS and one applied to all functionaries, whether at headquarters or in the offices of the General Secretariat of member States, and is in no way an ad hoc procedure established on the occasion of Ms. Jaume Sosa’s claim; B. Staff Rules 112.1 and 112.2 indicate that the hearing and reconsideration procedures are to be conciliatory, not contentious, in nature; C. In OAS cases similar to Ms. Jaume Sosa’s, requests of complainants arriving after the due date were denied on the grounds that they were submitted outside of the allowable time frame; and D. Dr. Haran had, in the fulfillment of her duties, provided to Ms. Jaume Sosa information that she had requested, served as a contact regarding the hearing, and sent her pertinent documents and official notices. Having examined the proceedings, the Tribunal now
CONSIDERS:
1. This case comes before the OAS Administrative Tribunal for the limited purpose of dealing with a preliminary objection that has been raised by the Secretary General calling for the dismissal of the Complainant’s petition based on the following two procedural deficiencies: a. The failure of the Complainant to properly exhaust her administrative remedies by virtue of the fact that her request for reconsideration of the Secretary General’s denial of her administrative appeal was not submitted within the 15-day period specified in Staff Rule 112.2. Specifically, it was received by the Secretary General on April 9, 2003, rather than the April 8, 2003 date that the Secretary General claims to be the proper due date; and, b. The inadmissibility of the Complainant’s original petition due to her previous failure to exhaust her administrative remedies provided for in the Staff Rules when appealing the Secretary General’s original decision not to engage her services in a new contract. Counsel for the Secretary General suggests that the Administrative Tribunal’s decision of October 29, 2002-- finding that the administrative complaint filed with the Administrative Tribunal constituted timely constructive notice of appeal to the Secretary General, thus satisfying Staff Rule 112.2 requirements--was not authorized under General Assembly Resolutions or the OAS Charter, and that, consequently, any renewed claim by the Complainant based on the reinstitution of the administrative appeal under the prior order of October 29, 2002, must be considered inadmissible and subject to dismissal. Based on these arguments, the Secretary General has moved for dismissal of the instant complaint as a preliminary procedural matter, and has requested that the Tribunal “revisit” and reverse its prior decision in this case. 2. The Tribunal concludes that, while major deficiencies exist in the actions and positions taken by both parties in this case as regards the preliminary procedural issues related to the exhaustion by the Complainant of her administrative remedies, and the timeliness of her submissions to the Secretary General, the weight of the evidence suggests that sufficient grounds have not been presented to justify the dismissal of the Complainant’s petition as a preliminary matter under Article 24 of the Administrative Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure. 3. With respect to the issue of the alleged lack of timeliness of the Complainant’s submission of her request for reconsideration based on receipt of the petition one day after the 15-day period specified in Staff Rule 112.2, we agree that the Complainant had been placed on notice by the Secretary General that it was the Secretary General’s expectation and view that the petition for reconsideration had to be received on April 8, 2003, that the Complainant did not exercise sufficient care in determining that the express delivery service that she used would require two days, not one, to deliver the documents, and that the preponderance of Staff Rules follow the principle that the date of receipt rather than the date of sending is controlling in deciding the timeliness of a submission. 4. Nevertheless, despite these problems, more persuasive is the fact that as a matter of law there is some amount of ambiguity in the language of the Staff Rules regarding the time limit for the filing of a request for reconsideration that contributes materially to the procedural dispute in which the parties find themselves. a. The Secretary General contends that the applicable rule requires receipt of the request for reconsideration by the Secretary General within the stipulated 15-day period. The Complainant contends that the date the request is sent should be controlling. Unfortunately, the Staff Rules do not resolve this difference of opinion in a precise fashion, or with sufficient clarity: the precise language of section 112 does not specify whether the date of sending or the date of receipt is controlling. Instead, the rule indicates simply that a party objecting to a decision by the Secretary General “may present a request for reconsideration within 15 days.” Staff Rule 112.2(a), emphasis added. The use of the term “present”, unfortunately, leaves a certain amount of ambiguity as to whether the date of submission or the date of receipt shall be taken as controlling. b. In addition, the Complainant has noted in her response to the Secretary General’s motion for dismissal that there is some language in other provisions related to the appeal process, notably Article 33 of the Rules of Procedure of the Administrative Tribunal, that suggests that the date of sending rather than the date of receipt should be taken as controlling. While this language is not directly applicable to the specific purpose and type of submission covered by this case, and deals with the procedures of the Administrative Tribunal as opposed to the appeal and reconsideration process of the Secretary General, it is indicative of a more general lack of consistency with respect to how the issue of submission dates is handled, which may have contributed to the timeliness problem in the Complainant’s submission in this case. c. To compound the matter further, this case presents the rather special circumstance where delivery of the petition by express delivery service required two days rather than the one that normally is the case, because of the great distance involved. While the Complainant most certainly should have been aware of this factor, the additional time required for delivery certainly adds an equitable consideration that both this Tribunal and the Secretary General must take into account, especially given the lack of clarity in the Staff Rules, and the relatively short time period (15 days) provided for submission of a request for reconsideration. d. While, on the whole, the evidence is strong that the Secretary General’s interpretation is the correct one, there is sufficient ambiguity in the specific terms of the Staff Rules to make it unreasonable to dismiss the Complainant’s petition as untimely as a preliminary matter. This is particularly true given the special problems in delivery posed by the great distance of her post from OAS Headquarters in Washington, D.C. Complainant and her counsel did not exercise due care in how they handled the timeliness of their submission, particularly in view of having been put on notice in advance as to what date of receipt the Secretary General required. These deficiencies, however, are outweighed by the unfortunate ambiguity in the language of the Staff Rules on the particular question of whether the date of sending or the date of receipt is controlling. e. Nor are we persuaded by the Secretary General’s argument that the Complainant could have made use of a fax or electronic submission to assure a more timely submission. While use of such mechanisms is to be encouraged, especially for those posted at great distance from Headquarters, as a simple means of assuring that the Secretary General is notified in a more timely manner of submissions that are being made, it remains true that delivery of an original, signed copy is nevertheless mandated, or at least recommended. Complainant again failed to exercise due care in failing to at least send a copy of her submission by fax and/or electronic mail to meet the time deadline that the Secretary General had imposed. This failure, however, does not overcome the inherent problem in the ambiguity in the specific language of the Staff Rules dealing with the issue of the timeliness of submissions that has been noted. f. It is especially important and noteworthy in this regard that the World Bank’s Appeals Committee, an organ immediately below the Bank’s Administrative Tribunal, was recently presented with an almost identical problem regarding the interpretation of timeliness of submission in the administrative process. They, too, resolved the issue by ruling that there was an ambiguity in the language of the rules, and by recommending amendments to the language of the staff rules to eliminate the unintended ambiguity.
5. Another factual matter that deserves to be taken into account is that the Secretary General also appears to have run afoul of procedural requirements to a certain extent in how he has handled the administrative process of dealing with the Complainant’s appeal. a. The Tribunal’s prior decision reinstituting the Complainant’s appeal was issued on October 29, 2002. That decision gave the Secretary General 20 days, pursuant to the procedures set out in Rule 112.1 of the Staff Rules related to the handling of appeals, to deal with the Complainant’s reinstituted appeal. Specifically, Rule 112.1 indicates that “[w]ithin 20 days following the interested staff member’s [appeal], the Secretary General shall decide whether to withdraw the measure, confirm it, or change it.” This language clearly suggests that some sort of final action or decision on the appeal must be taken within the 20-day period set out in the Rule, a reading that accords with the way in which this Tribunal’s October 29, 2002 Order was written. b. No doubt based at least in part on the complicating factors associated with the Complainant’s location in a post far removed from Headquarters and direct access to the Secretary General, the Secretary General invoked the not unreasonable procedure of appointing a hearing officer to consider the appeal and to make a recommendation regarding its treatment. This process was not completed until March 7, 2003, more than four months after the Tribunal issued its decision, and well beyond the 20-day period specified in the Rules during which a determination regarding the appeal was to be made. This additional time, and the hearing procedure that gave rise to it, may have been entirely reasonable and appropriate given the circumstances involved, and it may have been what was required to make a determination on the appeal. But the fact remains that the deadlines specified in the Rules were not met, nor was the Complainant given an opportunity to waive her rights under Rule 112.1.
These procedural deficiencies in the Secretary General’s handling of the appeal add further weight to the conclusion that dismissing the Complainant’s petition on the grounds that her request for reconsideration arrived one day late would not be appropriate. Indeed, if the Secretary General had not violated the Rule 112.1 time requirements, then the Complainant might not have needed to file a request for reconsideration in order to exhaust her administrative remedies, since the Secretary’s failure could be interpreted as a waiver of the necessity to pursue further administrative relief.
6. Under the totality of all of these factors and circumstances, the Tribunal does not believe that a sufficiently clear basis exists under Article 24 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure for dismissing the complaint outright as a preliminary matter in accordance with the Secretary General’s request. A sufficient basis has not been presented under Article 24 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure to find that the Complainant did not properly exhaust her administrative remedies. 7. Having thus determined as a preliminary matter that the Complainant’s petition should not be dismissed for lack of exhaustion of administrative remedies, the Tribunal must choose between two options regarding the treatment of the merits of this appeal, and the form of relief that should be granted at this point in time. a. The first option would be to remand the case to the Secretary General for completion of the regular administrative process so that he can act on the Complainant’s request for reconsideration, the substance of which he did not previously address because he considered its submission to be untimely. b. The second option would be for the Tribunal to consider the administrative process to be completed and any further remand for administrative reconsideration futile, given the Secretary General’s initial denial of the merits of the Complainant’s claim, his refusal to deal with the Complainant’s request for reconsideration on procedural grounds, and his failure in any case to deal with the Complainant’s appeal under the time limits set out under Staff Rule 112.1. The especially lengthy and unusually contentious nature of the preliminary proceedings that have taken place in this case, together with the problem concerning the Secretary General’s failure to abide by the time limit set out in Staff Rule 112.1 for dealing with the Complainant’s appeal, and the implied waiver of further exhaustion that this failure indicates, suggest that remanding the proceedings for further administrative action is likely to be both unnecessarily time-consuming and pointless. For these reasons the Tribunal opts not to remand the case once again for further administrative action, and to move to a consideration of the case on the merits. With this goal in mind, the parties will be directed to submit final pleadings summarizing their positions and arguments, and to be present at the next session of the Tribunal so that oral arguments can be presented and heard, and a final decision rendered. 8. This case having now come before this Tribunal on two separate occasions extending over a fairly long period of time based on exclusively preliminary and procedural matters and objections, it becomes both necessary and appropriate at this point for the Tribunal to remind both parties of certain principles that need to be kept in the forefront as the final process of dealing with the merits of the substantive issues presented by the case begins.
a. First, and most important, is the principle established by the General Assembly as a general matter both for the parties to administrative proceedings and for this Tribunal, which places heavy emphasis on the value and necessity of fully pursuing and exploring voluntary means for the settlement of personnel disputes before resorting to the judicial procedures offered by the Administrative Tribunal. Nowhere is this well-placed emphasis and admonition more relevant than with regard to a case, such as the one now before the Tribunal, where serious problems and deficiencies are apparent in the positions and arguments of both parties to the dispute, with regard to both the procedural and substantive aspects of their claims. It is an old and frequently applied axiom of jurisprudence that “hard cases make bad law.” In this case, as has already been amply demonstrated by the controversies raised on behalf of both parties over an extended period of time with respect to preliminary, procedural questions, it is unfortunately the case that neither party can lay claim to a clear and untainted legal position and set of supporting arguments. Under these circumstances, and most especially given the General Assembly’s strong admonition regarding the emphasis to be placed on the voluntary settlement of disputes, the Tribunal finds it necessary to urge both parties, in the strongest of terms, to give renewed and careful consideration to efforts along these lines before the merits of this case come before the Tribunal for final decision in its next session. It is easy to imagine, given the significant problems inherent in both parties’ positions and legal arguments, that a decision on the merits by the Tribunal may not be entirely satisfactory to either party. Nor has the parties’ unusually heavy emphasis on preliminary and procedural questions, considered during two separate sessions of this Tribunal, convinced us that the parties to the dispute have properly taken to heart the General Assembly’s strong admonition regarding the need to fully explore all voluntary means of dispute resolution. It is the Tribunal’s hope and expectation that the parties will make proper use of the additional period of time that is being granted for the final presentation of the parties’ cases on the merits to properly explore all possible avenues for the voluntary settlement of this case. b. A second general observation along similar lines is made necessary by the misplaced and inappropriate references made by the Secretary General’s counsel, in his submission to the Tribunal, to the allegedly “ultra vires” nature of the Tribunal’s initial procedural determination in this case that the Complainant’s untimely (too early) submission of a complaint to the Tribunal before exhausting her administrative appeal option, in the highly unusual circumstances where that submission was made within the time limit set under the Staff Rules for the filing of an administrative appeal to the Secretary General, and where the Secretary General had thereby received timely notice of the Complainant’s desire to appeal his action, could be taken as having provided “constructive notice” of an appeal to the Secretary General for administrative purposes. Counsel for the Secretary General has suggested in his submission that the Tribunal’s decision on this matter may be invalid based on the “ultra vires” claim, and that this provides another basis for dismissing the Complainant’s claims on procedural grounds, since her motion to reconsider (whose timeliness is at issue in the present proceeding) was based on that earlier decision. With regard to the ultra vires argument, it is important to note at the outset that the General Assembly Resolution dealing with this matter, and the Tribunal Rules adopted pursuant to that Regulation, set out a very specific procedure that must be used by the parties for raising an ultra vires challenge. These appeal procedures were not invoked by the Secretary General with respect to the prior Decision, so the ultra vires question must be considered moot with regard to that Decision, and with regard to the legality and appropriateness of the administrative procedures that that Decision ordered to be followed. Far more important than this procedural argument, however, is the more general, underlying question of whether, and under what circumstances, a claim of ultra vires action by the Tribunal can and should be brought. While the decision of whether and when such a claim is raised obviously remains within the authority and jurisdiction of the affected parties to disputes before the Tribunal, and not to the Tribunal itself, it should nevertheless be considered essential and inherent in the nature of the ultra vires appeal process that it be invoked, or even alluded to in the course of proceedings, under only the most urgent and extreme circumstances, where highly significant legal issues are in dispute, and the core interests and concerns of the Organization are materially affected. For counsel for the Secretary General to blithely suggest that an action by the Tribunal is ultra vires and illegal in the context of the exceedingly minor preliminary procedural questions posed by the present case in its two initial presentations before this Tribunal is not only of highly questionable validity. It is also highly inappropriate and inherently damaging to the effort to maintain the Organization’s dispute resolution process as an objective and effective means for preventing the development of unmanageable personnel problems, and preserving the ability of the Organization to deal with personnel disputes without invoking the specter of contentious and unnecessary litigation in the domestic courts of its Member States. If every decision taken by the Tribunal, no matter how mundane and insignificant in character and impact, is challenged, or even threatened to be challenged, by a dissatisfied party invoking an ultra vires claim, both the validity of the ultra vires appeal procedures themselves, and the ability of the Tribunal to function as an independent and effective dispute resolution body, are brought into serious question. Purely from the point of view of the potential cost to the Organization of dealing with the ultra vires appeal process, let alone the broader institutional concerns that have been mentioned, the use, or threat of use, of the ultra vires procedure must be carefully and judiciously limited to only the most significant legal issues that touch on the most important core interests of the Organization, its Member States, and the parties to personnel disputes. The preliminary, procedural issues raised thus far in the Sosa case in the two proceedings that have taken place are as far from meeting these core criteria for the use of the ultra vires procedures as can be imagined. For this reason, the Tribunal feels it necessary and important to respectfully admonish all parties invoking, or considering to invoke, an ultra vires claim or argument to be properly mindful of the considerations that have been mentioned concerning the nature, impact, and costs (both financial and otherwise) associated with the use of these special appeal procedures, and to reserve them only for the most urgent and important issues of essential consequence for the Organization. The procedural matters raised by this case do not meet this test. By virtue of the foregoing, the Tribunal unanimously
RESOLVES: 1. To deny the Secretary General’s motion for dismissal of the Complainant’s petition to the Tribunal, filed pursuant to Article 24 of the Administrative Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure, on the basis of having determined that the Complainant’s petition to the Tribunal was properly filed and that she has exhausted her administrative remedies. 2. To proceed to consider the merits of the present case at the next session of the Administrative Tribunal, and, for that purpose, to order the parties to submit within 60 days of issuance of this decision by the Tribunal, in accordance with Article 37, final pleadings summarizing their positions and legal arguments on the merits of this dispute, with the objective of hearing and resolving the merits of the case at the next session of the Tribunal. Further, the parties’ legal representatives are requested to attend this next session of the Tribunal so that they may be given the opportunity to present their arguments in person at a hearing to be convened for that purpose. If it is difficult or impossible for the Complainant’s legal representative to attend this hearing because of the distance or costs involved, they are requested to inform the Tribunal’s Secretariat of this fact, and the case will be decided without oral arguments on the basis of the parties’ written submissions. 3. To assess to the Secretary General the legal costs of the Complainant associated with this portion of the proceedings dealing with their motion for dismissal in an amount not to exceed the attorney fee limit referred to in Article IX, paragraph 5 of the Tribunal’s Statute, the Tribunal having determined that there is insufficient legal basis for the Secretary General’s motion to dismiss the Complainant’s claim based on her alleged failure to exhaust administrative remedies, and our conclusion that the submission of her request for reconsideration was done on a timely basis under the Staff Rules. This assessment is additionally warranted given that this was the second preliminary and procedural objection raised by the Secretary General that has been rejected by the Tribunal in this case.
Let notification be given. Washington, D.C., October 30, 2003
Judge
Rosa Montalvo Cabrera Judge Morton H. Sklar Judge Agustin Gordillo Dr.
Reinaldo Rodriguez Gallad |